WRITINGS OF ATHENAGORAS

Athenagoras (c. AD 133-190) was a Christian apologist of the second half of the 2nd century of whom little is known for certain, besides that he was Athenian (though possibly not originally from Athens), a philosopher, and a convert to Christianity. There is some evidence that he was a Platonist before his conversion, but this is not certain. Athenagoras’ work is important in defending the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Athenagoras also offers us glimpses into early Christian doctrines on abortion and the resurrection.

His work appears to have been well known and influential. There are two mentions of him in early Christian literature: several accredited quotations from his Apology in a fragment of Methodius of Olympus (died AD 312) and some untrustworthy biographical details in the fragments of the Christian History of Philip of Side (c. AD 425). Philip of Side claimed that Athenagoras headed the catechetical school at Alexandria. He also notes that Athenagoras converted to Christianity after familiarizing himself with the Scriptures in an attempt to debunk them.

His writings bear witness to his erudition and culture, his power as a philosopher and rhetorician, his keen appreciation of the intellectual temper of his age, and his tact and delicacy in dealing with the powerful opponents of his religion. Thus his writings are credited by some later scholars as having had a more significant impact on their intended audience than the now better-known writings of his more polemical and religiously grounded contemporaries. Of his writings, of which they were likely many, there have been preserved but two: his Apology or Embassy for the Christians, and a Treatise on the Resurrection.

The Apology, the date of which is fixed by internal evidence as late in 176 or 177, was not, as the title Embassy (presbeia) has suggested, an oral defense of Christianity, but a carefully written plea for justice to the Christians made by a philosopher, on philosophical grounds, to the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus, who he flatters as conquerors, "but above all, philosophers." He first complains of the illogical and unjust discrimination against the Christians and of the calumnies they suffer, and then meets the charge of atheism (a major complaint directed at the Christians of the day was that by disbelieving in the Roman gods, they were showing themselves to be atheists). He establishes the principle of monotheism, citing pagan poets and philosophers in support of the very doctrines for which Christians are condemned, and argues for the superiority of the Christian belief in God to that of pagans. This first strongly reasoned argument for the unity of God in Christian literature is supplemented by an able exposition of the Trinity. Finally, he meets the charges of immorality by exposing the Christian ideal of purity, even in thought, and the inviolable sanctity of the marriage bond. The charge of cannibalism is refuted by showing the high regard for human life by Christians who detest the crime of abortion.

The treatise on the Resurrection of the Body, the first complete exposition of the doctrine in Christian literature, was written later than the Apology, to which it may be considered as an appendix. Athenagoras brings to the defense of the doctrine the best that contemporary philosophy could adduce. After meeting the objections common to his time, he demonstrates the possibility of a resurrection in view either of the power of the Creator, or of the nature of our bodies. To exercise such powers is neither unworthy of God nor unjust to other creatures. He shows that the nature and end of man demand a perpetuation of the life of body and soul.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE WRITINGS OF ATHENAGORAS

In placing Athenagoras here, somewhat out of the
order usually accepted, I commit no appreciable violence
against chronology, and I gain a great advantage for
the reader. To some extent we must recognise, in collocation,
the principles of affinity and historic growth. Closing
up the bright succession of the earlier Apologists,
this favourite author affords also a fitting introduction
to the great founder of the Alexandrian School, who
comes next into view. His work opens the way for Clement's
elaboration of Justin's claim, that the whole of philosophy
is embraced in Christianity. It is charming to find
the primal fountains of Christian thought uniting here,
to flow on for ever in the widening and deepening channel
of Catholic orthodoxy, as it gathers into itself all
human culture, and enriches the world with products
of regenerated mind, harvested from its overflow into
the fields of philosophy and poetry and art and science.
More of this when we come to Clement, that man of genius
who introduced Christianity to itself, as reflected
in the burnished mirror of his intellect. Shackles
are falling from the persecuted and imprisoned faculties
of the faithful, and soon the Faith is to speak out,
no more in tones of apology, but as mistress of the
human mind, and its pilot to new worlds of discovery
and broad domains of conquest. All hail the freedom
with which, henceforth, Christians are to assume the
overthrow of heathenism as a foregone conclusion. The
distasteful exposure of heresies was the inevitable
task after the first victory. It was the chase and
following-up of the adversary in his limping and cowardly
retreat, "the scattering of the rear of darkness."
With Athenagoras, we touch upon tokens of things to
come; we see philosophy yoked to the chariot of Messiah;
we begin to realize that sibylline surrender of outworn
Paganism, and its forecast of an era of light:--

In Athenagoras, whose very name is a retrospect,
we discover a remote result of St. Paul's speech on
Mars Hill. The apostle had cast his bread upon the
waters of Ilissus and Cephisus to find it after many
days. "When they heard of the resurrection of
the dead, some mocked;" but here comes a philosopher,
from the Athenian agora, a convert to St. Paul's argument
in his Epistle to the Corinthians, confessing"
the unknown God," demolishing the marble mob of
deities that so "stirred the apostle's spirit
within him," and teaching alike the Platonist
and the Stoic to sit at the feet of Jesus. "Dionysius
the Areopagite, and the woman named Damaris,"
are no longer to be despised as the scanty first-fruits
of Attica. They too have found a voice in this splendid
trophy of the Gospel; and, "being dead, they yet
speak" through him.

To the meagre facts of his biography, which appear
below, there is nothing to be added;[1] and I shall
restrain my disposition to be a commentator, within
the limits of scanty notations. In the notes to Tatian
and Theophilus, I have made the student acquainted
with that useful addition to his treatise on Justin
Martyr, in which the able and judicious Bishop Kaye
harmonizes those authors with Justin. The same harmony
enfolds the works of Athenagoras,[2] and thus affords
a synopsis of Christian teaching under the Antonines;
in which precision of theological language is yet unattained,
but identity of faith is clearly exhibited. While the
Germans are furnishing the scholar with critical editions
of the ancients, invaluable for their patient accumulations
of fact and illustration, they are so daring in theory
and conjecture when they come to exposition, that one
enjoys the earnest and wholesome tone of sober comment
that distinguishes the English theologian. It has the
great merit of being inspired by profound sympathy
with primitive writers, and unadulterated faith in
the Scriptures. Too often a German critic treats one
of these venerable witnesses, who yet live and yet
speak, as if they were dead subjects on the dissecting-table.
They cut and carve with anatomical display, and use
the microscope with scientific skill; but, oh! how
frequently they surrender the saints of God as mere
corpses, into the hands of those who count them victims
of a blind faith in a dead Christ.

It will not be necessary, after my quotations from
Kaye in the foregoing sheets, to do more than indicate
similar illustrations of Athenagoras to be found in
his pages. The dry version often requires lubrications
of devoutly fragrant exegesis; and providentially they
are at hand in that elaborate but modest work, of which
even this generation should not be allowed to lose
sight.

The annotations of Conrad Gesner and Henry Stephans
would have greatly enriched this edition, had I been
permitted to enlarge the work by adding a version of
them. They are often curious, and are supplemented
by the interesting letter of Stephans to Peter Nannius,
"the eminent pillar of Louvain," on the earliest
copies of Athenagoras, from which modern editions have
proceeded. The Paris edition of Justin Marty(1615)
contains these notes, as well as the Greek of Tatian,
Theophilus, and Athenagoras, with a Latin rendering.
As Bishop Kaye constantly refers to this edition, I
have considered myself fortunate in possessing it;
using it largely in comparing his learned comments
with the Edinburgh Version.

A few words as to the noble treatise of our author,
on the Resurrection. As a finn and loving voice to
this keynote of Christian faith, it rings like an anthem
through all the variations of his thought and argument.
Comparing his own blessed hope with the delusions of
a world lying in wickedness, and looking stedfastly
to the life of the world to come, what a sublime contrast
we find in this figure of Christ's witness to the sensual
life of the heathen, and even to the groping wisdom
of the Attic sages. I think this treatise a sort of
growth from the mind of one who had studied in the
Academe, pitying yet loving poor Socrates and his disciples.
Yet more, it is the outcome of meditation on that sad
history in the Acts, which expounds St. Paul's bitter
reminiscences, when he says that his gospel was, "to
the Greeks, foolishness." They never "heard
him again on this matter." He left them under
the confused impressions they had expressed in the
agora, when they said, "he seemeth to be a setter-forth
of new gods." St. Luke allows himself a smile
only half suppressed when he adds, "because he
preached unto them Jesus and Anastasis," which
in their ears was only a barbarian echo to their own
Phoebus and Artemis; and what did Athenians want of
any more wares of that sort, especially under the introduction
of a poor Jew from parts unknown? Did the apostle's
prophetic soul foresee Athenagoras, as he "departed
from among them"? However that may be, his blessed
Master "knew what he would do." He could
let none of Paul's words fall to the ground, without
taking care that some seeds should bring forth fruit
a thousand-fold. Here come the sheaves at last. Athenagoras
proves, also, what our Saviour meant, when he said
to the Galileans, "Ye are the light of the world."

The following is the original INTRODUCTORY NOTICE:--

IT is one of the most singular facts in early ecclesiastical
history, that the name of Athenagoras is scarcely ever
mentioned. Only two references to him and his writings
have been discovered. One of these occurs in the work
of Methodius, On the Resurrection of the Body, as preserved
by Epiphanius(Hoer., lxiv.) and Photius(Biblioth.,
ccxxxiv.). The other notice of him is found in the
writings[1] of Philip of Side, in Pamphylia, who flourished
in the early part of the fifth century. It is very
remarkable that Eusebius should have been altogether
silent regarding him; and that writings, so elegant
and powerful as are those which still exist under his
name, should have been allowed in early times to sink
into almost entire oblivion.

We know with certainty regarding Athenagoras, that
he was an Athenian philosopher who had embraced Christianity,
and that his Apology, or, as he styles it, "Embassy"
(<greek>p?esbeia</greek>), was presented
to the Emperors Aurelius and Commodus about A.D. 177.
He is supposed to have written a considerable number
of works, but the only other production of his extant
is his treatise on the Resurrection. It is probable
that this work was composed somewhat later than the
Apology(see chap. xxxvi.), though its exact date cannot
be determined. Philip of Side also states that he preceded
Pantaenus as head of the catechetical school at Alexandria;
but this is probably incorrect, and is contradicted
by Eusebius. A more interesting and perhaps well-rounded
statement is made by the same writer respecting Athenagoras,
to the effect that he was won over to Christianity
while reading the Scriptures in order to controvert
them? Both his Apology and his treatise on the Resurrection
display a practised pen and a richly cultured mind.
He is by far the most elegant, and certainly at the
same time one of the ablest, of the early Christian
Apologists.

A PLEA FOR THE CHRISTIANS BY ATHENAGORAS THE ATHENIAN:
PHILOSOPHER AND CHRISTIAN

To the Emperors Marcus Aurelius Anoninus and Lucius
Aurelius Commodus, conquerors of Armenia and Sarmatia,
and more than all, philosophers.

CHAP. I.--INJUSTICE SHOWN TOWARDS THE CHRISTIANS.

In your empire, greatest of sovereigns, different
nations have different customs and laws; and no one
is hindered by law or fear of punishment from following
his ancestral usages, however ridiculous these may
be. A citizen of Ilium calls Hector a god, and pays
divine honours to Helen, taking her for Adrasteia.
The Lacedaemonian venerates Agamemnon as Zeus, and
Phylonoe the daughter of Tyndarus; and the man of Tenedos
worships Tennes.[2] The Athenian sacrifices to Erechtheus
as Poseidon. The Athenians also perform religious rites
and celebrate mysteries in honour of Agraulus and Pandrosus,
women who were deemed guilty of impiety for opening
the box. In short, among every nation and people, men
offer whatever sacrifices and celebrate whatever mysteries
they please. The Egyptians reckon among their gods
even cats, and crocodiles, and serpents, and asps,
and dogs. And to all these both you and the laws give
permission so to act, deeming, on the one hand, that
to believe in no god at all is impious and wicked,
and on the other, that it is necessary for each man
to worship the gods he prefers, in order that through
fear of the deity, men may be kept from wrong-doing.
But why--for do not, like the multitude, be led astray
by hearsay--why is a mere name odious to you?[3] Names
are not deserving of hatred: it is the unjust act that
calls for penalty and punishment. And accordingly,
with admiration of your mildness and gentleness, and
your peaceful and benevolent disposition towards every
man, individuals live in the possession of equal rights;
and the cities, according to their rank, share in equal
honour; and the whole empire, under your intelligent
sway, enjoys profound peace. But for us who are called
Christians[4] you have not in like manner cared; but
although we commit no wrong--nay, as will appear in
the sequel of this discourse, are of all men most piously
and righteously disposed towards the Deity and towards
your government--you allow us to be harassed, plundered,
and persecuted, the multitude making war upon us for
our name alone. We venture, therefore, to lay a statement
of our case before you--and you will team from this
discourse that we suffer unjustly, and contrary to
all law and reason--and we beseech you to bestow some
consideration upon us also, that we may cease at length
to be slaughtered at the instigation of false accusers.
For the fine imposed by our persecutors does not aim
merely at our property, nor their insults at our reputation,
nor the damage they do us at any other of our greater
interests. These we hold in contempt, though to the
generality they appear matters of great importance;
for we have learned, not only not to return blow for
blow, nor to go to law with those who plunder and rob
us, but to those who smite us on one side of the face
to offer the other side also, and to those who take
away our coat to give likewise our cloak. But, when
we have surrendered our property, they plot against
our very bodies and souls,[5] pouring

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upon us wholesale charges of crimes of which we are
guiltless even in thought, but which belong to these
idle praters themselves, and to the whole tribe of
those who are like them.

CHAP. II.--CLAIM TO BE TREATED AS OTHERS ARE WHEN ACCUSED.

If, indeed, any one can convict us of a crime, be
it small or great, we do not ask to be excused from
punishment, but are prepared to undergo the sharpest
and most merciless inflictions. But if the accusation
relates merely to our name--and it is undeniable, that
up to the present time the stories told about us rest
on nothing better than the common undiscriminating
popular talk, nor has any Christian[1] been convicted
of crime--it will devolve on you, illustrious and benevolent
and most learned sovereigns, to remove by law this
despiteful treatment, so that, as throughout the world
both individuals and cities partake of your beneficence,
we also may feel grateful to you, exulting that we
are no longer the victims of false accusation. For
it does not comport with your justice, that others
when charged with crimes should not be punished till
they are convicted, but that in our case the name we
bear should have more force than the evidence adduced
on the trial, when the judges, instead of inquiring
whether the person arraigned have committed any crime,
vent their insults on the name, as if that were itself
a crime.[2] But no name in and by itself is reckoned
either good or bad; names appear bad or good according
as the actions underlying them are bad or good. You,
however, have yourselves a dear knowledge of this,
since you are well instructed in philosophy and all
learning. For this reason, too, those who are brought
before you for trial, though they may be arraigned
on the gravest charges, have no fear, because they
know that you will inquire respecting their previous
life, and not be influenced by names if they mean nothing,
nor by the charges contained in the indictments if
they should be false: they accept with equal satisfaction,
as regards its fairness, the sentence whether of condemnation
or acquittal. What, therefore, is conceded as the common
right of all, we claim for ourselves, that we shall
not be hated and punished because we are called Christians
(for what has the name[2] to do with our being bad
men?), but be tried on any charges which may be brought
against us, and either be released on our disproving
them, or punished if convicted of crime--not for the
name (for no Christian is a bad man unless he falsely
profess our doctrines), but for the wrong which has
been done. It is thus that we see the philosophers
judged. None of them before trial is deemed by the
judge either good or bad on account of his science
or art, but if found guilty of wickedness he is punished,
without thereby affixing any stigma on philosophy (for
he is a bad man for not cultivating philosophy in a
lawful manner, but science is blameless), while if
he refutes the false charges he is acquitted. Let this
equal justice, then, be done to us. Let the life of
the accused persons be investigated, but let the name
stand free from all imputation. I must at the outset
of my defence entreat you, illustrious emperors, to
listen to me impartially: not to be carried away by
the common irrational talk and prejudge the case, but
to apply your desire of knowledge and love of truth
to the examination of our doctrine also. Thus, while
you on your part will not err through ignorance, we
also, by disproving the charges arising out of the
undiscerning rumour of the multitude, shall cease to
be assailed.

CHAP. III.--CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS.

Three things are alleged against us: atheism, Thyestean
feasts,[3] OEdipodean intercourse. But if these charges
are true, spare no class: proceed at once against our
crimes; destroy us root and branch, with our wives
and children, if any Christian[4] is found to live
like the brutes. And yet even the brutes do not touch
the flesh of their own kind; and they pair by a law
of nature, and only at the regular season, not from
simple wantonness; they also recognise those from whom
they receive benefits. If any one, therefore, is more
savage than the brutes, what punishment that he can
endure shall be deemed adequate to such offences? But,
if these things are only idle tales and empty slanders,
originating in the fact that virtue is opposed by its
very nature to vice, and that contraries war against
one another by a divine law (and you are yourselves
witnesses that no such iniquities are committed by
us, for you forbid informations to be laid against
us), it remains for you to make inquiry concerning
our life, our opinions, our loyalty and obedience to
you and your house and government, and thus at length
to grant to us the same rights (we ask nothing more)
as to those who persecute us. For we shall then conquer
them, unhesitatingly surrendering, as we now do, our
very lives for the truth's sake.

CHAP. IV.--THE CHRISTIANS ARE NOT ATHEISTS, BUT ACKNOWLEDGE
ONE ONLY GOD.

As regards, first of all, the allegation that we
are atheists--for I will meet the charges one

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by one, that we may not be ridiculed for having no answer
to give to those who make them--with reason did the
Athenians adjudge Diagoras guilty of atheism, in that
he not only divulged the Orphic doctrine, and published
the mysteries of Eleusis and of the Cabiri, and chopped
up the wooden statue of Hercules to boil his turnips,
but openly declared that there was no God at all. But
to us, who distinguish God from matter,[1] and teach
that matter is one thing and God another, and that
they are separated by a wide interval (for that the
Deity is uncreated and eternal, to be beheld by the
understanding and reason alone, while matter is created
and perishable), is it not absurd to apply the name
of atheism? If our sentiments were like those of Diagoras,
while we have such incentives to piety--in the established
order, the universal harmony, the magnitude, the colour,
the form, the arrangement of the world--with reason
might our reputation for impiety, as well as the cause
of our being thus harassed, be charged on ourselves.
But, since our doctrine acknowledges one God, the Maker
of this universe, who is Himself uncreated (for that
which is does not come to be, but that which is not)
but has made all things by the Logos which is from
Him, we are treated unreasonably in both respects,
in that we are both defamed and persecuted.

CHAP. V.--TESTIMONY OF THE POETS TO THE UNITY OF GOD.[2]

Poets and philosophers have not been voted atheists
for inquiring concerning God. Euripides, speaking of
those who, according to popular preconception, are
ignorantly called gods, says doubtingly:--
"If Zeus indeed does reign in heaven above,
He ought not on the righteous ills to send."[3]
But speaking of Him who is apprehended by the understanding
as matter of certain knowledge, he gives his opinion
decidedly, and with intelligence, thus:--
"Seest thou on high him who, with humid arms,
Clasps both the boundless ether and the earth?
Him reckon Zeus, and him regard as God."[4]
For, as to these so-called gods, he neither saw any
real existences, to which a name is usually assigned,
underlying them ("Zeus," for instance: "who
Zeus is I know not, but by report"), nor that
any names were given to realities which actually do
exist (for of what use are names to those who have
no real existences underlying them?); but Him he did
see by means of His works, considering with an eye
to things unseen the things which are manifest in air,
in ether, on earth. Him therefore, from whom proceed
all created things, and by whose Spirit they are governed,
he concluded to be God; and Sophocles agrees with him,
when he says:--
"There is one God, in truth there is but one,
Who made the heavens, and the broad earth beneath."[5]
[Euripides is speaking] of the nature of God, which
fills His works with beauty, and teaching both where
God must be, and that He must be One.

CHAP. VI.--OPINIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS AS TO THE ONE
GOD.

Philolaus, too, when he says that all things are
included in God as in a stronghold, teaches that He
is one, and that He is superior to matter. Lysis and
Opsimus[6] thus define God: the one says that He is
an ineffable number, the other that He is the excess
of the greatest number beyond that which comes nearest
to it. So that since ten is the greatest number according
to the Pythagoreans, being the Tetractys,[7] and containing
all the arithmetic and harmonic principles, and the
Nine stands next to it, God is a unit--that is, one.
For the greatest number exceeds the next least by one.
Then there are Plato and Aristotle--not that I am about
to go through all that the philosophers have said about
God, as if I wished to exhibit a complete summary of
their opinions; for I know that, as you excel all men
in intelligence and in the power of your rule, in the
same proportion do you surpass them all in an accurate
acquaintance with all learning, cultivating as you
do each several branch with more success than even
those who have devoted themselves exclusively to any
one. But, inasmuch as it is impossible to demonstrate
without the citation of names that we are not alone
in confining the notion of God to unity, I have ventured
on an enumeration of opinions. Plato, then, says, "To
find out the Maker and Father of this universe is difficult;
and, when found, it is impossible to declare Him to
all,"[8] conceiving of one uncreated and

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eternal God. And if he recognises others as well, such
as the sun, moon, and stars, yet he recognises them
as created: "gods, offspring of gods, of whom
I am the Maker, and the Father of works which are indissoluble
apart from my will; but whatever is compounded can
be dissolved."[1] If, therefore, Plato is not
an atheist for conceiving of one uncreated God, the
Framer of the universe, neither are we atheists who
acknowledge and firmly hold that He is God who has
framed all things by the Logos, and holds them in being
by His Spirit. Aristotle, again, and his followers,
recognising the existence of one whom they regard as
a sort of compound living creature (<greek>zwon</greek>),
speak of God as consisting of soul and body, thinking
His body to be the etherial space and the planetary
stars and the sphere of the fixed stars, moving in
circles; but His soul, the reason which presides over
the motion of the body, itself not subject to motion,
but becoming the cause of motion to the other. The
Stoics also, although by the appellations they employ
to suit the changes of matter, which they say is permeated
by the Spirit of God, they multiply the Deity in name,
yet in reality they consider God to be one.[2] For,
if God is an artistic fire advancing methodically to
the production of the several things in the world,
embracing in Himself all the seminal principles by
which each thing is produced in accordance with fate,
and if His Spirit pervades the whole world, then God
is one according to them, being named Zeus in respect
of the fervid part (<greek>to</greek> <greek>zeon</greek>)
of matter, and Hera in respect of the air (<greek>o</greek>
<greek>ahr</greek>), and called by other
names in respect of that particular part of matter
which He pervades.

CHAP. VII.--SUPERIORITY OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE RESPECTING
GOD.

Since, therefore, the unity of the Deity is confessed
by almost all, even against their will, when they come
to treat of the first principles of the universe, and
we in our turn likewise assert that He who arranged
this universe is God,--why is it that they can say
and write with impunity what they please concerning
the Deity, but that against us a law lies in force,
though we are able to demonstrate what we apprehend
and justly believe, namely that there is one God, with
proofs and reason accordant with truth? For poets and
philosophers, as to other subjects so also to this,
have applied themselves in the way of conjecture, moved,
by reason of their affinity with the afflatus from
God,[3] each one by his own soul, to try whether he
could find out and apprehend the truth; but they have
not been found competent fully to apprehend it, because
they thought fit to learn, not from God concerning
God, but each one from himself; hence they came each
to his own conclusion respecting God, and matter, and
forms, and the world. But we have for witnesses of
the things we apprehend and believe, prophets, men
who have pronounced concerning God and the things of
God, guided by the Spirit of God. And you too will
admit, excelling all others as you do in intelligence
and in piety towards the true God (<greek>to</greek>
<greek>ontws</greek> <greek>qeion</greek>),
that it would be irrational for us to cease to believe
in the Spirit from God, who moved the mouths of the
prophets like musical instruments, and to give heed
to mere human opinions.

CHAP. VIII.--ABSURDITIES OF POLYTHEISM.

As regards, then, the doctrine that there was from
the beginning one God, the Maker of this universe,
consider it in this wise, that you may be acquainted
with the argumentative grounds also of our faith. If
there were from the beginning two or more gods, they
were either in one and the same place, or each of them
separately in his own. In one and the same place they
could not be. For, if they are gods, they are not alike;
but because they are uncreated they are unlike:-- for
created things are like their patterns; but the uncreated
are unlike, being neither produced from any one, nor
formed after the pattern of any one. Hand and eye and
foot are parts of one body, making up together one
man: is God in this sense one?[4] And indeed Socrates
was compounded and divided into parts, just because
he was created and perishable; but God is uncreated,
and, impassible, and indivisible--does not, therefore,
consist of parts. But if, on the contrary, each of
them exists separately, since He that made the world
is above the things created, and about the things He
has made and set in order, where can the other or the
rest be? For if the world, being made spherical, is
confined within the circles of heaven, and the Creator
of the world is above the things created, managing
that[5] by His providential care of these, what place
is there for the second god, or for the other gods?
For he is not in the world, because it belongs to the
other; nor about the world, for God the Maker of the
world is above it. But if he is neither in the world
nor about the world (for

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all that surrounds it is occupied by this one[1]), where
is he? Is he above the world and [the first] God? In
another world, or about another? But if he is in another
or about another, then he is not about us, for he does
not govern the world; nor is his power great, for he
exists in a circumscribed space. But if he is neither
in another world (for all things are filled by the
other), nor about another (for all things are occupied
by the other), he clearly does not exist at all, for
there is no place in which he can be. Or what does
he do, Seeing there is another to whom the world belongs,
and he is above the Maker of the world, and yet is
neither in the world nor about the world? Is there,
then, some other place where he can stand? But God,
and what belongs to God, are above him. And what, too,
shall be the place, seeing that the other fills the
regions which are above the world? Perhaps he exerts
a providential care? [By no means.] And yet, unless
he does so, he has done nothing. If, then, he neither
does anything nor exercises providential care, and
if there is not another place in which he is, then
this Being of whom we speak is the one God from the
beginning, and the sole Maker of the world.

CHAP. IX.--THE TESTIMONY OF THE PROPHETS.

If we satisfied ourselves with advancing such considerations
as these, our doctrines might by some be looked upon
as human. But, since the voices of the prophets confirm
our arguments--for I think that you also, with your
great zeal for knowledge, and your great attainments
in learning, cannot be ignorant of the writings either
of Moses or of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the other prophets,
who, lifted in ecstasy above the natural operations
of their minds by the impulses of the Divine Spirit,
uttered the things with which they were inspired, the
Spirit making use of them as a flute-player[2] breathes
into a flute;--what, then, do these men say? The LORD
is our God; no other can be compared with Him."[3]
And again: "I am God, the first and the last,
and besides Me there is no God."[4] In like manner:
"Before Me there was no other God, and after Me
there shall be none; I am God, and there is none besides
Me."[5] And as to His greatness: "Heaven
is My throne, and the earth is the footstool of My
feet: what house win ye build for Me, or what is the
place of My rest?"[6] But I leave it to you, when
you meet with the books themselves, to examine carefully
the prophecies contained in them, that you may on fitting
grounds defend us from the abuse cast upon us.

CHAP. X.--THE CHRISTIANS WORSHIP THE FATHER, SON, AND
HOLY GHOST.

That we are not atheists, therefore, seeing that
we acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible,
impassible, incomprehensible, illimitable, who is apprehended
by the understanding only and the reason, who is encompassed
by light, and beauty, and spirit, and power ineffable,
by whom the universe has been created through His Logos,
and set in order, and is kept in being--I have sufficiently
demonstrated. [I say "His Logos"], for we
acknowledge also a Son of God. Nor let any one think
it ridiculous that God should have a Son. For though
the poets, in their fictions, represent the gods as
no better than men, our mode of thinking is not the
same as theirs, concerning either God the Father or
the Son. But the Son of God is the Logos of the Father,
in idea and in operation; for after the pattern of
Him and by Him[7] were all things made, the Father
and the Son being one. And, the Son being in the Father
and the Father in the Son, in oneness and power of
spirit, the understanding and reason (<greek>nous</greek>
<greek>kai</greek> <greek>logos</greek>)
of the Father is the Son of God. But if, in your surpassing
intelligence,[8] it occurs to you to inquire what is
meant by the Son, I will state briefly that He is the
first product of the Father, not as having been brought
into existence (for from the beginning, God, who is
the eternal mind [<greek>nous</greek>],
had the Logos in Himself, being from eternity instinct
with Logos [<greek>logikos</greek>]; but
inasmuch as He came forth to be the idea and energizing
power of all material things, which lay like a nature
without attributes, and an inactive earth, the grosser
particles being mixed up with the lighter. The prophetic
Spirit also agrees with our statements. "The Lord,"
it says, "made me, the beginning of His ways to
His works."[9] The Holy Spirit Himself also, which
operates in the prophets, we assert to be an effluence
of God, flowing from Him, and returning back again
like a beam of the sun. Who, then, would not be astonished
to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,[10] and who declare
both their power in union and their distinction in
order, called atheists? Nor is our teaching in what
relates to the divine nature confined to these points;
but we recognise also a multitude of angels and ministers,[11]
whom God the Maker and Framer of the world distributed
and ap-

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pointed to their several posts by His Logos, to occupy
themselves about the elements, and the heavens, and
the world, and the things in it, and the goodly ordering
of them all.

CHAP. XI.--THE MORAL TEACHING OF THE CHRISTIANS REPELS
THE CHARGE BROUGHT AGAINST THEM.

If I go minutely into the particulars of our doctrine,
let it not surprise you. It is that you may not be
carried away by the popular and irrational opinion,
but may have the truth clearly before you. For presenting
the opinions themselves to which we adhere, as being
not human but uttered and taught by God, we shall be
able to persuade you not to think of us as atheists.
What, then, are those teachings in which we are brought
up? "I say unto you, Love your enemies; bless
them that curse you; pray for them that persecute you;
that ye may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven,
who causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good,
and sends rain on the just and the unjust."[1]
Allow me here to lift up my voice boldly in loud and
audible outcry, pleading as I do before philosophic
princes. For who of those that reduce syllogisms, and
clear up ambiguities, and explain etymologies,[2] or
of those who teach homonyms and synonyms, and predicaments
and axioms, and what is the subject and what the predicate,
and who promise their disciples by these and such like
instructions to make them happy: who of them have so
purged their souls as, instead of hating their enemies,
to love them; and, instead of speaking ill of those
who have reviled them (to abstain from which is of
itself an evidence of no mean forbearance), to bless
them; and to pray for those who plot against their
lives? On the contrary, they never cease with evil
intent to search out skilfully the secrets of their
art,[3] and are ever bent on working some ill, making
the art of words and not the exhibition of deeds their
business and profession. But among us you will find
uneducated persons, and artisans, and old women, who,
if they are unable in words to prove the benefit of
our doctrine, yet by their deeds exhibit the benefit
arising from their persuasion of its truth: they do
not rehearse speeches, but exhibit good works; when
struck, they do not strike again; when robbed, they
do not go to law; they give to those that ask of them,
and love their neighbours as themselves.

CHAP. XII.--CONSEQUENT ABSURDITY OF THE CHARGE OF ATHEISM.

Should we, then, unless we believed that a God presides
over the human race, thus purge ourselves from evil?
Most certainly not. But, because we are persuaded that
we shall give an account of everything in the present
life to God, who made us and the world, we adopt a
temperate and benovolent and generally despised method
of life, believing that we shall suffer no such great
evil here, even should our lives be taken from us,
compared with what we shall there receive for our meek
and benevolent and moderate life from the great Judge.
Plato indeed has said that Minos and Rhadamanthus will
judge and punish the wicked; but we say that, even
if a man be Minos or Rhadamanthus himself, or their
father, even he will not escape the judgment of God.
Are, then, those who consider life. to be comprised
in this, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die," and who regard death as a deep sleep
and forgetfulness ("sleep and death, twin-brothers"[4]),
to be accounted pious; while men who reckon the present
life of very small worth indeed, and who are conducted
to the future life by this one thing alone, that they
know God and His Logos, what is the oneness of the
Son with the Father, what the communion of the Father
with the Son, what is the Spirit, what is the unity
of these three, the Spirit, the Son, the Father, and
their distinction in unity; and who know that the life
for which we look is far better than can be described
in words, provided we arrive at it pure from all wrong-doing;
who, moreover, carry our benevolence to such an extent,
that we not only love our friends ("for if ye
love them," He says, "that love you, and
lend to them that lend to you, what reward will ye
have?"[5]),--shall we, I say, when such is our
character, and when we live such a life as this, that
we may escape condemnation at last, not be accounted
pious? These, however, are only small matters taken
from great, and a few things from many, that we may
not further trespass on your patience; for those who
test honey and whey, judge by a small quantity whether
the whole is good.

CHAP. XIII.--WHY THE CHRISTIANS DO NOT OFFER SACRIFICES.

But, as most of those who charge us with atheism,
and that because they have not even the dreamiest conception
of what God is, and are doltish and utterly unacquainted
with natural and divine things, and such as measure
piety by the rule of sacrifices, charges us with not
acknowledging the same gods as the cities, be pleased
to attend to the following considerations, O emperors,
on both points. And first, as to our not sacrificing:
the Framer and Father of

135

this universe does not need blood, nor the odour of
burnt-offerings, nor the fragrance of flowers and incense,[1]
forasmuch as He is Himself perfect fragrance, needing
nothing either within or without; but the noblest sacrifice[2]
to Him is for us to know who stretched out and vaulted
the heavens, and fixed the earth in its place like
a centre, who gathered the water into seas and divided
the light from the darkness, who adorned the sky with
stars and made the earth to bring forth seed of every
kind, who made animals and fashioned man. When, holding
God to be this Framer of all things, who preserves
them in being and superintends them all by knowledge
and administrative skill, we "lift up holy hands"
to Him, what need has He further of a hecatomb?

"For they, when mortals have transgress'd or
fail'd
To do aright, by sacrifice and pray'r,
Libations and burnt-offerings, may be soothed."[3]

And what have I to do with holocausts, which God
does not stand in need of?--though indeed it does behove
us to offer a bloodless sacrifice and "the service
of our reason."[4]

CHAP. XIV.--INCONSISTENCY OF THOSE WHO ACCUSE THE CHRISTIANS.

Then, as to the other complaint, that we do not
pray to and believe in the same gods as the cities,
it is an exceedingly silly one. Why, the very men who
charge us with atheism for not admitting the same gods
as they acknowledge, are not agreed among themselves
concerning the gods. The Athenians have set up as gods
Celeus and Metanira: the Lacedaemonians Menelaus; and
they offer sacrifices and hold festivals to him, while
the men of Ilium cannot endure the very sound of his
name, and pay their adoration to Hector. The Ceans
worship Aristaeus, considering him to be the same as
Zeus and Apollo; the Thasians Theagenes, a man who
committed murder at the Olympic games; the Samians
Lysander, notwithstanding all the slaughters and all
the crimes perpetrated by him; Alcman and Hesiod Medea,
and the Cilicians Niobe; the Sicilians Philip the son
of Butacides; the Amathusians Onesilus; the Carthaginians
Hamilcar. Time would fail me to enumerate the whole.
When, therefore, they differ among themselves concerning
their gods, why do they bring the charge against us
of not agreeing with them? Then look at the practices
prevailing among the Egyptians: are they not perfectly
ridiculous? For in the temples at their solemn festivals
they beat their breasts as for the dead, and sacrifice
to the same beings as gods; and no wonder, when they
look upon the brutes as gods, and shave themselves
when they die, and bury them in temples, and make public
lamentation. If, then, we are guilty of impiety because
we do not practise a piety corresponding with theirs,
then all cities and all nations are guilty of impiety,
for they do not all acknowledge the same gods.

CHAP. XV.--THE CHRISTIANS DISTINGUISH GOD FROM MATTER.

But grant that they acknowledge the same. What then?
Because the multitude, who cannot distinguish between
matter and God, or see how great is the interval which
lies between them, pray to idols made of matter, are
we therefore, who do distinguish and separate the uncreated
and the created, that which is and that which is not,
that which is apprehended by the understanding and
that which is perceived by the senses, and who give
the fitting name to each of them,--are we to come and
worship images? If, indeed, matter and God are the
same, two names for one thing, then certainly, in not
regarding stocks and stones, gold and silver, as gods,
we are guilty of impiety. But if they are at the greatest
possible remove from one another--as far asunder as
the artist and the materials of his art--why are we
called to account? For as is the potter and the clay
(matter being the clay, and the artist the potter),
so is God, the Framer of the world, and matter, which
is subservient to Him for the purposes of His art.[5]
But as the clay cannot become vessels of itself without
art, so neither did matter, which is capable of taking
all forms, receive, apart from God the Framer, distinction
and shape and order. And as we do not hold the pottery
of more worth than him who made it, nor the vessels
or glass and gold than him who wrought them; but if
there is anything about them elegant in art we praise
the artificer, and it is he who reaps the glory of
the vessels: even so with matter and God --the glory
and honour of the orderly arrangement of the world
belongs of right not to matter, but to God, the Framer
of matter. So that, if we were to regard the various
forms of matter as gods, we should seem to be without
any sense of the true God, because we should be putting
the things which are dissoluble and perishable on a
level with that which is eternal.

136

CHAP. XVI.--THE CHRISTIANS DO NOT WORSHIP THE UNIVERSE.

Beautiful without doubt is the world, excelling,[1]
as well in its magnitude as in the arrangement of its
parts, both those in the oblique circle and those about
the north, and also in its spherical form.[2] Yet it
is not this, but its Artificer, that we must worship.
For when any of your subjects come to you, they do
not neglect to pay their homage to you, their rulers
and lords, from whom they will obtain whatever they
need, and address themselves to the magnificence of
your palace; but, if they chance to come upon the royal
residence, they bestow a passing glance of admiration
on its beautiful structure: but it is to you yourselves
that they show honour, as being "all in all."
You sovereigns, indeed, rear and adorn your palaces
for yourselves; but the world was not created because
God needed it; for God is Himself everything to Himself,--light
unapproachable, a perfect world, spirit, power, reason.
If, therefore, the world is an instrument in tune,
and moving in well-measured time, I adore the Being
who gave its harmony, and strikes its notes, and sings
the accordant strain, and not the instrument. For at
the musical contests the adjudicators do not pass by
the lute-players and crown the lutes. Whether, then,
as Plato says, the world be a product of divine art,
I admire its beauty, and adore the Artificer; or whether
it be His essence and body, as the Peripatetics affirm,
we do not neglect to adore God, who is the cause of
the motion of the body, and descend "to the poor
and weak elements," adoring in the impassible[3]
air (as they term it), passible matter; or, if any
one apprehends the several parts of the world to be
powers of God, we do not approach and do homage to
the powers, but their Maker and Lord. I do not ask
of matter what it has not to give, nor passing God
by do I pay homage to the elements, which can do nothing
more than what they were bidden; for, although they
are beautiful to look upon, by reason of the art of
their Framer, yet they still have the nature of matter.
And to this view Plato also bears testimony; "for,"
says he, "that which is called heaven and earth
has received many blessings from the Father, but yet
partakes of body; hence it cannot possibly be free
from' change."[4] If, therefore, while I admire
the heavens and the elements in respect of their art,
I do not worship them as gods, knowing that the law
of dissolution is upon them, how can I call those objects
gods of which I know the makers to be men? Attend,
I beg, to a few words on this subject.

CHAP. XVII.--THE NAMES OF THE GODS AND THEIR IMAGES
ARE BUT OF RECENT DATE.

An apologist must adduce more precise arguments
than I have yet given, both concering the names of
the gods, to show that they are of recent origin, and
concerning their images, to show that they are, so
to say, but of yesterday. You yourselves, however,
are thoroughly acquainted with these matters, since
you are versed in all departments of knowledge, and
are beyond all other men familiar with the ancients.
I assert, then, that it was Orpheus, and Homer, and
Hesiod who s gave both genealogies and names to those
whom they call gods. Such, too, is the testimony of
Herodotus.[6] "My opinion," he says, "is
that Hesiod and Homer preceded me by four hundred years,
and no more; and it was they who framed a theogony
for the Greeks, and gave the gods their names, and
assigned them their several honours and functions,
and described their forms." Representations of
the gods, again, were not in use at all, so long as
statuary, and painting, and sculpture were unknown;
nor did they become common until Saurias the Samian,
and Crato the Sicyonian, and Cleanthes the Corinthian,
and the Corinthian damsel[7] appeared, when drawing
in outline was invented by Saurias, who sketched a
horse in the sun, and painting by Crato, who painted
in oil on a whitened tablet the outlines of a man and
woman; and the art of making figures in relief (<greek>koroplaqikh</greek>)
was invented by the damsel,[7] who, being in love with
a person, traced his shadow on a wall as he lay asleep,
and her father, being delighted with the exactness
of the resemblance (he was a potter), carved out the
sketch and filled it up with clay: this figure is still
preserved at Corinth. After these, Daedalus and Theodorus
the Milesian further invented sculpture and statuary.
You perceive, then, that the time since representations
of form and the making of images began is so short,
that we can name the artist of each particular god.
The image of Artemis at Ephesus, for example, and that
of Athena (or rather of Athela, for so is she named
by those who speak more in the style of the mysteries;
for thus was the ancient image made of the olive-tree
called), and the sitting figure of the same goddess,
were made by Endoeus, a pupil of Daedalus; the Pythian
god was the work of Theodorus and Telecles; and the
Delian

137

god and Artemis are due to the art of Tectaeus and Angelio;
Hera in Samos and in Argos came from the hands of Smilis,
and the other statues[1] were by Phidias; Aphrodite
the courtezan in Cnidus is the production of Praxiteles;
Asclepius in Epidaurus is the work of Phidias. In a
word, of not one of these statues can it be said that
it was not made by man. If, then, these are gods, why
did they not exist from the beginning? Why, in sooth,
are they younger than those who made them? Why, in
sooth, in order to their coming into existence, did
they need the aid of men and art? They are nothing
but earth, and stones, and matter, and curious art.[2]

CHAP. XVIII.--THE GODS THEMSELVES HAVE BEEN CREATED,
AS THE POETS CONFESS.

But, since it is affirmed by some that, although
these are only images, yet there exist gods in honour
of whom they are made; and that the supplications and
sacrifices presented to the images are to be referred
to the gods, and are in fact made to the gods;[3] and
that there is not any other way of coming to them,
for

"'Tis hard for man
To meet in presence visible a God;"[4]

and whereas, in proof that such is the fact, they adduce
the eneregies possessed by certain images, let us examine
into the power attached to their names. And I would
beseech you, greatest of emperors, before I enter on
this discussion, to be indulgent to me while I bring
forward true considerations; for it is not my design
to show the fallacy of idols, but, by disproving the
calumnies vented against us, to offer a reason for
the course of life we follow. May you, by considering
yourselves, be able to discover the heavenly kingdom
also! For as all things are subservient to you, father
and son,[5] who have received the kingdom from above
(for "the king's soul is in the hand of God,"[6]
saith the prophetic Spirit), so to the one God and
the Logos proceeding from. Him, the Son, apprehended
by us as inseparable from Him, all things are in like
manner subjected. This then especially I beg you carefully
to consider. The gods, as they affirm, were not from
the beginning, but every one of them has come into
existence just like ourselves. And in this opinion
they all agree. Homer speaks of

"Old Oceanus,
The sire of gods, and Tethys;"[7]

and Orpheus (who, moreover, was the first to invent
their names, and recounted their births, and narrated
the exploits of each, and is believed by them to treat
with greater truth than others of divine things, whom
Homer himself follows in most matters, especially in
reference to the gods)--he, too, has fixed their first
origin to be from water:--

"Oceanus, the origin of all."

For, according to him, water was the beginning of all
things, and from water mud was formed, and from both
was produced an animal, a dragon with the head of a
lion growing to it, and between the two heads there
was the face of a god, named Heracles and Kronos. This
Heracles generated an egg of enormous size, which,
on becoming full, was, by the powerful friction of
its generator, burst into two, the part at the top
receiving the form of heaven (<greek>ouranos</greek>),
and the lower part that of earth (<greek>gh</greek>).
The goddess Ge, moreover, came forth with a body; and
Ouranos, by his union with Ge, begat females, Clotho,
Lachesis, and Atropos; and males, the hundred-handed
Cottys, Gyges, Briareus, and the Cyclopes Brontes,
and Steropes, and Argos, whom also he bound and hurled
down to Tartarus, having learnt that he was to be ejected
from his government by his children; whereupon Ge,
being enraged, brought forth the Titans.[8]

"The godlike Gala bore to Ouranos
Sons who are by the name of Titans known,
Because they vengeance[9] took on Ouranos,
Majestic, glitt'ring with his starry crown."[10]

CHAP. XIX.--THE PHILOSOPHERS AGREE WITH THE POETS RESPECTING
THE GODS.

Such was the beginning of the existence both of
their gods and of the universe. Now what are we to
make of this? For each of those things to which divinity
is ascribed is conceived of as having existed from
the first. For, if they have come into being, having
previously had no existence, as those say who treat
of the gods, they do not exist. For, a thing is either
uncreated and eternal, or created and perishable. Nor
do I think one thing and the philosophers another.
"What is that which always is, and has no origin;
or what is that which has been originated, yet never
is?"[11] Discoursing of the intelligible and the
sensible, Plato teaches that

138

that which always is, the intelligible, is unoriginated,
but that which is not, the sensible, is originated,
beginning to be and ceasing to exist. In like manner,
the Stoics also say that all things will be burnt up
and will again exist, the world receiving another beginning.
But if, although there is, according to them, a twofold
cause, one active and governing, namely providence,
the other passive and changeable, namely matter, it
is nevertheless impossible for the world, even though
under the care of Providence, to remain in the same
state, because it is created--how can the constitution
of these gods remain, who are not self-existent,[1]
but have been originated? And in what are the gods
superior to matter, since they derive their constitution
from water? But not even water, according to them,
is the beginning of all things. From simple and homogeneous
elements what could be constituted? Moreover, matter
requires an artificer, and the artificer requires matter.
For how could figures be made without matter or an
artificer? Neither, again, is it reasonable that matter
should be older than God; for the efficient cause must
of necessity exist before the things that are made.

CHAP. XX.--ABSURD REPRESENTATIONS OF THE GODS.

If the absurdity of their theology were confined
to saying that the gods were created, and owed their
constitution to water, since I have demonstrated that
nothing is made which is not also liable to dissolution,
I might proceed to the remaining charges. But, on the
one hand, they have described their bodily forms:
speaking of Hercules, for instance, as a god in the
shape of a dragon coiled up; of others as hundred-handed;
of the daughter of Zeus, whom he begat of his mother
Rhea; or of Demeter, as having two eyes in the natural
order, and two in her forehead, and the face of an
animal on the back part of her neck, and as having
also horns, so that Rhea, frightened at her monster
of a child, fled from her, and did not give her the
breast (<greek>qhlh</greek>), whence mystically
she is called Athela, but commonly Phersephone and
Kore, though she is not the same as Athena,(2) who
is called Kore from the pupil of the eye;--and, on
the other hand, they have described their admirable[3]
achievements, as they deem them: how Kronos, for instance,
mutilated his father, and hurled him down from his
chariot, and how he murdered his children, and swallowed
the males of them; and how Zeus bound his father, and
cast him down to Tartarus, as did Ouranos also to his
sons, and fought with the Titans for the government;
and how he persecuted his mother Rhea when she refused
to wed him, and, she becoming a she-dragon, and he
himself being changed into a dragon, bound her with
what is called the Herculean knot, and accomplished
his purpose, of which fact the rod of Hermes is a symbol;
and again, how he violated his daughter Phersephone,
in this case also assuming the form of a dragon, and
became the father of Dionysus. In face of narrations
like these, I must say at least this much, What that
is becoming or useful is there in such a history, that
we must believe Kronos, Zeus, Kore, and the rest, to
be gods? Is it the descriptions of their bodies? Why,
what man of judgment and reflection will believe that
a viper was begotten by a god (thus Orpheus:--

"But from the sacred womb Phanes begat
Another offspring, horrible and fierce,
In sight a frightful viper, on whose head
Were hairs: its face was comely; but the rest,
From the neck downwards, bore the aspect dire
Of a dread dragon"[4]);

or who will admit that Phanes himself, being a first-born
god (for he it was that was produced from the egg),
has the body or shape of a dragon, or was swallowed
by Zeus, that Zeus might be too large to be contained?
For if they differ in no respect from the lowest brutes
(since it is evident that the Deity must differ from
the things of earth and those that are derived from
matter), they are not gods. How, then, I ask, can we
approach them as suppliants, when their origin resembles
that of cattle, and they themselves have the form of
brutes, and are ugly to behold?

CHAP. XXI.--IMPURE LOVES ASCRIBED TO THE GODS.

But should it be said that they only had fleshly
forms, and possess blood and seed, and the affections
of anger and sexual desire, even then we must regard
such assertions as nonsensical and ridiculous; for
there is neither anger, nor desire and appetite, nor
procreative seed, in gods. Let them, then, have fleshly
forms, but let them be superior to wrath and anger,
that Athena may not be seen

"Burning with rage and inly wroth with Jove;"[5]

nor Hera appear thus:--

"Juno's breast
Could not contain her rage."[6]

And let them be superior to grief:--

139

"A woful sight mine eyes behold: a man
I love in flight around the walls! My heart
For Hector grieves."[1]

For I call even men rude and stupid who give way to
anger and grief. But when the "father of men and
gods" mourns for his son,--

who would not blame the folly of those who, with tales
like these, are lovers of the gods, or rather, live
without any god? Let them have fleshly forms, but let
not Aphrodite be wounded by Diomedes in her body: --

"The haughty son of Tydeus, Diomed,
Hath wounded me;"[4]

or by Ares in her soul:--

"Me, awkward me, she scorns; and yields her
charms
To that fair lecher, the strong god of arms."[5]

"The weapon pierced the flesh."[6]

He who was terrible in battle, the ally of Zeus against
the Titans, is shown to be weaker than Diomedes:--

"He raged, as Mars, when brandishing his spear."[7]

Hush! Homer, a god never rages. But you describe the
god to me as blood-stained, and the bane of mortals:--

"Mars, Mars, the bane of mortals, stained with
blood;"[8]

and you tell of his adultery and his bonds:--

"Then, nothing loth, th' enamour'd fair he
led,
And sunk transported on the conscious bed.
Down rushed the toils."[9]

Do they not pour forth impious stuff of this sort in
abundance concerning the gods? Ouranos is mutilated;
Kronos is bound, and thrust down to Tartarus; the Titans
revolt; Styx dies in battle: yea, they even represent
them as mortal; they are in love with one another;
they are in love with human beings:--

Are they not in love? Do they not suffer? Nay, verily,
they are gods, and desire cannot touch them! Even though
a god assume flesh in pursuance of a divine purpose,"
he is therefore the slave of desire.

"For never yet did such a flood of love,
For goddess or for mortal, fill my soul;
Not for Ixion's beauteous wife, who bore
Pirithous, sage in council as the gods;
Nor the neat-footed maiden Danae,
A crisius' daughter, her who Perseus bore,
Th' observ'd of all; nor noble Phoenix child;
...... nor for Semele;
Nor for Alcmena fair; ...
No, nor for Ceres, golden-tressed queen;
Nor for Latona bright; nor for thyself."[12]

He is created, he is perishable, with no trace of a
god in him. Nay, they are even the hired servants of
men:--

"Admetus' halls, in which I have endured
To praise the menial table, though a god."[13]

And they tend cattle:--

"And coming to this laud, I cattle fed,
For him that was my host, and kept this house."[14]

Admetus, therefore, was superior to the god. 0 prophet
and wise one, and who canst foresee for others the
things that shall be, thou didst not divine the slaughter
of thy beloved, but didst even kill him with thine
own hand, dear as he was:--

"And I believed Apollo's mouth divine
Was full of truth, as well as prophet's art.

(AEschylus is reproaching Apollo for being a false prophet:)--

"The very one who slugs while at the feast,
The one who said these things, alas! is he
Who slew my son."[15]

CHAP. XXII.--PRETENDED SYMBOLICAL EXPLANATIONS.

But perhaps these things are poetic vagary, and
there is some natural explanation of them, such as
this by Empedocles:--

"Let Jove be fire, and Juno source of life,
With Pluto and Nestis, who bathes with tears
The human founts."

If, then, Zeus is fire, and Hera the earth, and Aidoneus
the air, and Nestis water, and these are elements--fire,
water, air--none of them is a god, neither Zeus, nor
Hera, nor Aidoneus; for from matter separated into
parts by God is their constitution and origin:--

"Fire, water, earth, and the air's gentle height,
And harmony with these."

Here are things which without harmony cannot abide;
which would be brought to ruin by strife: how then
can any one say that they are

140

gods? Friendship, according to Empedocles, has an aptitude
to govern, things that are compounded are governed,
and that which is apt to govern has the dominion; so
that if we make the power of the governed and the governing
one and the same, we shall be, unawares to ourselves
putting perishable and fluctuating and changeable matter
on an equality with the uncreated, and eternal, and
ever self-accordant God. Zeus is, according to the
Stoics, the fervid part of nature; Hera is the air
(<greek>ahr</greek>)--the very name, if
it be joined to itself, signifying this;[1] Poseidon
is what is drunk (water, <greek>posis</greek>).
But these things are by different persons explained
of natural objects in different ways. Some call Zeus
twofold masculine-feminine air; others the season which
brings about mild weather, on which account it was
that he alone escaped from Kronos. But to the Stoics
it may be said, If you acknowledge one God, the supreme
and uncreated and eternal One, and as many compound
bodies as there are changes of matter, and say that
the Spirit of God, which pervades matter, obtains according
to its variations a diversity of names the forms of
matter will become the body of God; but when the elements
are destroyed in the conflagration, the names will
necessarily perish along with the forms, the Spirit
of God alone remaining. Who, then, can believe that
those bodies, of which the variation according to matter
is allied to corruption, are gods? But to those who
say that Kronos is time, and Rhea the earth, and that
she becomes pregnant by Kronos, and brings forth, whence
she is regarded as the mother of all; and that he begets
and devours his offspring; and that the mutilation
is the intercourse of the male with the female, which
cuts off the seed and casts it into the womb, and generates
a human being, who has in himself the sexual desire,
which is Aphrodite; and that the madness of Kronos
is the turn of season, which destroys animate and inanimate
things; and that the bonds and Tartarus are time, which
is changed by seasons and disappears;--to such persons
we say, If Kronos is time, he changes; if a season,
he turns about; if darkness, or frost, or the moist
part of nature, none of these is abiding; but the Deity
is immortal, and immoveable, and unalterable: so that
neither is Kronos nor his image God. As regards Zeus
again: If he is air, born of Kronos, of which the male
part is called Zeus and the female Hera (whence both
sister and wife), he is subject to change; if a season,
he turns about: but the Deity neither changes nor shifts
about. But why should I trespass on your patience by
saying more, when you know so well what has been said
by each of those who have resolved these things into
nature, or what various writers have thought concerning
nature, or what they say concerning Athena, whom they
affirm to be the wisdom (<greek>fronhsis</greek>)
pervading all things; and concerning Isis, whom they
call the birth of all time (<greek>fusis</greek>
<greek>aiwnos</greek>), from whom all have
sprung, and by whom all exist; or concerning Osiris,
on whose murder by Typhon his brother Isis with her
son Orus sought after his limbs, and finding them honoured
them with a sepulchre, which sepulchre is to this day
called the tomb of Osiris? For whilst they wander up
and down about the forms of matter, they miss to find
the God who can only be beheld by the reason, while
they deify the elements and their several parts, applying
different names to them at different times: calling
the sowing of the corn, for instance, Osiris (hence
they say, that in the mysteries, on the finding of
the members of his body, or the fruits, Isis is thus
addressed: We have found, we wish thee joy), the fruit
of the vine Dionysus, the vine itself Semele, the heat
of the sun the thunderbolt. And yet, in fact, they
who refer the fables to actual gods, do anything rather
than add to their divine character; for they do not
perceive, that by the very defence they make for the
gods, they confirm the things which are alleged concerning
them. What have Europa, and the bull, and the swan,
and Leda, to do with the earth and air, that the abominable
intercourse of Zeus with them should be taken for the
intercourse of the earth and air? But missing to discover
the greatness of God, and not being able to rise on
high with their reason (for they have no affinity for
the heavenly place), they pine away among the forms
of matter, and rooted to the earth, deify the changes
of the elements: just as if any one should put the
ship he sailed in the place of the steersman. But as
the ship, although equipped with everything, is of
no use if it have not a steersman, so neither are the
elements, though arranged in perfect order, of any
service apart from the providence of God. For the ship
will not sail of itself; and the elements without their
Framer will not move.

CHAP. XXIII.--OPINIONS OF THALES AND PLATO.

You may say, however, since you excel all men in
understanding, How comes it to pass, then, that some
of the idols manifest power, if those to whom we erect
the statues are not gods? For it is not likely that
images destitute of life and motion can of themselves
do anything without a mover. That in various places,
cities, and nations, certain effects are brought about
in the name of idols, we are far from denying. None
the more, however, if some have received benefit, and
others, on the contrary, suffered harm, shall we deem
those to be gods who have produced the effects in either

141

case. But I have made careful inquiry, both why it is
that you think the idols to have this power, and who
they are that, usurping their names, produce the effects.
It is necessary for me, however, in attempting to show
who they are that produce the effects ascribed to the
idols, and that they are not gods, to have recourse
to some witnesses from among the philosophers. First
Thales, as those Who have accurately examined his opinions
report, divides[superior beings] into God, demons,
and heroes. God he recognises as the Intelligence (<greek>nous</greek>)
of the world; by demons he understands beings possessed
of Soul (<greek>yukikai</greek>); and by
heroes the separated souls of men, the good being the
good souls, and the bad the worthless. Plato again,
while withholding his assent on other points, also
divides[superior beings] into the uncreated God and
those produced by' the uncreated One for the adornment
of heaven, the planets, and the fixed stars, and into
demons; concerning which demons, while he does not
think fit to speak himself, he thinks that those ought
to be listened to who have spoken about them. "To
speak concerning the other demons, and to know their
origin, is beyond our powers; but we ought to believe
those who have before spoken, the descendants of gods,
as they say--and surely they must be well acquainted
with their own ancestors: it is impossible, therefore,
to disbelieve the sons of gods, even though they speak
without probable or convincing proofs; but as they
profess to tell of their own family affairs, we are
bound, in pursuance of custom, to believe them. In
this way, then, let us hold and speak as they do concerning
the origin of the gods themselves. Of Ge and Ouranos
were born Oceanus and Tethys; and of these Phorcus,
Kronos, and Rhea, and the rest; and of Kronos and Rhea,
Zeus, Hera, and all the others, who, we know, are all
called their brothers; besides other descendants again
of these."[1] Did, then, he who had contemplated
the eternal Intelligence and God who is apprehended
by reason, and declared His attributes--His real existence,
the simplicity of His nature, the good that flows forth
from Him that is truth, and discoursed of primal power,
and how "all things are about the King of all,
and all things exist for His sake, and He is the cause
of all;" and about two and three, that He is "the
second moving about the seconds, and the third about
the thirds;"[2]--did this man think, that to learn
the truth concerning those who are said to have been
produced from sensible things, namely earth and heaven,
was a task transcending his powers? It is not to be
believed for a moment. But because he thought it impossible
to believe that gods beget and are brought forth, since
everything that begins to be is followed by an end,
and (for this is much more difficult) to change the
views of the multitude, who receive the fables without
examination, on this account it was that he declared
it to be beyond his powers to know and to speak concerning
the origin of the other demons, since he was unable
either to admit or teach that gods were begotten. And
as regards that saying of his, "The great sovereign
in heaven, Zeus, driving a winged car, advances first,
ordering and managing all things, and there follow
him a host of gods and demons,"[3] this does not
refer to the Zeus who is said to have sprung from Kronos;
for here the name is given to the Maker of the universe.
This is shown by Plato himself: not being able to designate
Him by another title that should be suitable, he availed
himself of the popular name, not as peculiar to God,
but for distinctness, because it is not possible to
discourse of God to all men as fully as one might;
and he adds at the same time the epithet "Great,"
so as to distinguish the heavenly from the earthly,
the uncreated from the created, who is younger than
heaven and earth, and younger than the Cretans, who
stole him away, that he might not be killed by his
father.

CHAP. XXIV.--CONCERNING THE ANGELS AND GIANTS.

What need is there, in speaking to you who have
searched into every department of knowledge, to mention
the poets, or to examine opinions of another kind?
Let it suffice to say thus much. If the poets and philosophers
did not acknowledge that there is one God, and concerning
these gods were not of opinion, some that they are
demons, others that they are matter, and others that
they once were men,there might be some show of reason
for our being harassed as we are, since we employ language
which makes a distinction between God and matter, and
the natures of the two. For, as we acknowledge a God,
and a Son his Logos, and a Holy Spirit, united in essence,the
Father, the Son, the Spirit, because the Son is the
Intelligence, Reason, Wisdom of the Father, and the
Spirit an effluence, as light from fire; so also do
we apprehend the existence of other powers, which exercise
dominion about matter, and by means of it, and one
in particular, which is hostile to God: not that anything
is really opposed to God, like strife to friendship,
according to Empedocles, and night to day, according
to the appearing and disappearing of the stars (for
even if anything had placed itself in opposition to
God, it would have ceased to

142

exist, its structure being destroyed by-the power and
might of God), but that to the good that is in God,
which belongs of necessity to Him, and co-exists with
Him, as colour with body, without which it has no existence
(not as being part of it, but as an attendant property
co-existing with it, united and blended, just as it
is natural for fire to be yellow and the ether dark
blue),--to the good that is in God, I say, the spirit
which is about matter,[1] who was created by God; just
as the other angels were created by Him, and entrusted
with the control of matter and the forms of matter,
is opposed. For this is the office of the angels,--to
exercise providence for God over the things created
and ordered by Him; so that God may have the universal
and general providence of the whole, while the particular
parts are provided for by the angels appointed over
them.[2] Just as with men, who have freedom of choice
as to both virtue and vice (for you would not either
honour the good or punish the bad, unless vice and
virtue were in their own power; and some are diligent
in the matters entrusted to them by you, and others
faithless), so is it among the angels. Some, free agents,
you will observe, such as they were created by God,
continued in those things for which God had made and
over which He had ordained them; but some outraged
both the constitution of their nature and the government
entrusted to them: namely, this ruler of matter and
its various forms, and others of those who were placed
about this first firmament (you know that we say nothing
without witnesses, but state the things which have
been declared by the prophets); these fell into impure
love of virgins, and were subjugated by the flesh,
and he became negligent and wicked in the management
of the things entrusted to him. Of these lovers of
virgins, therefore, were begotten those who are called
giants.[3] And if something has been said by the poets,
too, about the giants, be not surprised at this: worldly
Wisdom and divine differ as much from each other as
truth and plausibility: the one is of heaven and the
other of earth; and indeed, according to the prince
of matter,--

"We know we oft speak lies that look like troths."[4]

CHAP. XXV.--THE POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS HAVE DENIED A
DIVINE PROVIDENCE.

These angels, then, who have fallen from heaven,
and haunt the air and the earth, and are no longer
able to rise to heavenly things, and the souls of the
giants, which are the demons who wander about the world,
perform actions similar, the one (that is, the demons)
to the natures they have received, the other (that
is, the angels) to the appetites they have indulged.
But the prince of matter, as may be seen merely from
what transpires, exercises a control and management
contrary to the good that is in God:--

"Ofttimes this anxious thought has crossed my mind,
Whether 'tis chance or deity that rules
The small affairs of men; and, spite of hope
As well as justice, drives to exile some
Stripped of all means of life, while others still
Continue to enjoy prosperity."[5]

Prosperity and adversity, contrary to hope and justice,
made it impossible for Euripides to say to whom belongs
the administration of earthly affairs, which is of
such a kind that one might say of it:--

"How then, while seeing these things, can we say
There is a race of gods, or yield to laws?"[6]

The same thing led Aristotle to say that the things
below the heaven are not under the care of Providence,
although the eternal providence of God concerns itself
equally with us below,-

"The earth, let willingness move her or not,
Must herbs produce, and thus sustain my flocks,"[7]--

and addresses itself to the deserving individually,
according to truth and not according to opinion; and
all other things, according to the general constitution
of nature, are provided for by the law of reason. But
because the demoniac movements and operations proceeding
from the adverse spirit produce these disorderly sallies,
and moreover move men, some in one way and some in
another, as individuals and as nations, separately
and in common, in accordance with the tendency of matter
on the one hand, and of the affinity for divine things
on the other, from within and from without,--some who
are of no mean reputation have therefore thought that
this universe is constituted without any definite order,
and is driven hither and thither by an irrational chance.
But they do not understand, that of those things which
belong to the constitution of the whole world there
is nothing out of order or neglected, but that each
one of them has been produced by reason, and that,
therefore, they do not transgress the order prescribed
to them; and that man himself, too, so far as He that
made him is concerned, is well ordered, both by his
original nature, which has one common character for
all, and by the constitution of his body, which does
not transgress the law imposed upon

143

it, and by the termination of his life, which remains
equal and common to all alike;[1] but that, according
to the character peculiar to himself and the operation
of the ruling prince and of the demons his followers,
he is impelled and moved in this direction or in that,
notwithstanding that all possess in common the same
original constitution of mind.[2]

CHAP. XXVI.--THE DEMONS ALLURE MEN TO THE WORSHIP OF
IMAGES,

They who draw men to idols, then, are the aforesaid
demons, who are eager for the blood of the sacrifices,
and lick them; but the gods that please the multitude,
and whose names are given to the images, were men,
as may be learned from their history. And that it is
the demons who act under their names, is proved by
the nature of their operations. For some castrate,
as Rhea; others wound and slaughter, as Artemis; the
Tauric goddess puts all strangers to death. I pass
over those who lacerate with knives and scourges of
bones, and shall not attempt to describe all the kinds
of demons; for it is not the part of a god to incite
to things against nature.

"But when the demon plots against a man,
He first inflicts some hurt upon his mind."[3]

But God, being perfectly good, is eternally doing good.
That, moreover, those who exert the power are not the
same as those to whom the statues are erected, very
strong evidence is afforded by Troas and Parium. The
one has statues of Neryllinus, a man of our own times;
and Parium of Alexander and Proteus: both the sepulchre
and the statue of Alexander are still in the forum.
The other statues of Neryllinus, then, are a public
ornament, if indeed a city can be adorned by such objects
as these; but one of them is supposed to utter oracles
and to heal the sick, and on this account the people
of the Troad offer sacrifices to this statue, and overlay
it with gold, and hang chaplets upon it. But of the
statues of Alexander and Proteus (the latter, you are
aware, threw himself into the fire near Olympia), that
of Proteus is likewise said to utter oracles; and to
that of Alexander--

"Wretched Paris, though in form so fair,
Thou slave of woman"[4]--

sacrifices are offered and festivals are held at the
public cost, as to a god who can hear. Is it, then,
Neryllinus, and Proteus, and Alexander who exert these
energies in connection with the statues, or is it the
nature of the matter itself? But the matter is brass.
And what can brass do of itself, which may be made
again into a different form, as Amasis treated the
footpan,[5] as told by Herodotus? And Neryllinus, and
Proteus, and Alexander, what good are they to the sick?
For what the image is said now to effect, it effected
when Neryllinus was alive and sick.

CHAP. XXVII.--ARTIFICES OF THE DEMONS.

What then? In the first place, the irrational and
fantastic movements of the soul about opinions produce
a diversity of images (<greek>eidwla</greek>)
from time to time: some they derive from matter, and
some they fashion and bring forth for themselves; and
this happens to a soul especially when it par takes
of the material spirit[6] and becomes mingled with
it, looking not at heavenly things and their Maker,
but downwards to earthly things, wholly at the earth,
as being now mere flesh and blood, and no longer pure
spirit.[7] These irrational and fantastic movements
of the soul, then, give birth to empty visions in the
mind, by which it becomes madly set on idols. When,
too, a tender and susceptible soul, which has no knowledge
or experience of sounder doctrines, and is unaccustomed
to contemplate truth, and to consider thoughtfully
the Father and Maker of all things, gets impressed
with false opinions respecting itself, then the demons
who hover about matter, greedy of sacrificial odours
and the blood of victims, and ever ready to lead men
into error, avail themselves of these delusive movements
of the souls of the multitude; and, taking possession
of their thoughts, cause to flow into the mind empty
visions as if coming from the idols and the statues;
and when, too, a soul of itself, as being immortal,[8]
moves comformably to reason, either predicting the
future or healing the present, the demons claim the
glory for themselves.

CHAP. XXVIII.--THE HEATHEN GODS WERE SIMPLY MEN.

But it is perhaps necessary, in accordance with
what has already been adduced, to say a little about
their names. Herodotus, then, and Alexander the son
of Philip, in his letter to his mother (and each of
them is said to have conversed with the priests at
Heliopolis, and Memphis, and Thebes), affirm that they
learnt from them that the gods had been men. Herodotus
speaks thus: "Of such a nature were, they said,
the beings represented by these images, they were very
far indeed from being gods. However, in the times anterior
to them it was otherwise; then

144

Egypt had gods for its rulers, who dwelt upon the earth
with men, one being always supreme above the rest.
The last of these was Horus the son of Osiris, called
by the Greeks Apollo. He deposed Typhon, and ruled
over Egypt as its last god-king. Osiris is named Dionysus
(Bacchus) by the Greeks."[1] "Almost all
the names of the gods came into Greece from Egypt."[2]
Apollo was the son of Dionysus and Isis, as He rodotus
likewise affirms: "According to the Egyptians,
Apollo and Diana are the children of Bacchus and Isis;
while Latona is their nurse and their preserver."[3]
These beings of heavenly origin they had for their
first kings: partly from ignorance of the true worship
of the Deity, partly from gratitude for their government,
they esteemed them as gods together with their wives.
"The male kine, if clean, and the male calves
are used for sacrifice by the Egyptians universally;
but the females, they are not allowed to sacrifice,
since they are sacred to Isis. The statue of this goddess
has the form of a woman but with horns like a cow,
resembling those of the Greek representations of Io."[4]
And who can be more deserving of credit in making these
statements, than those who in family succession son
from father, received not only the priesthood, but
also the history? For it is not likely that the priests,
who make if their business to commend the idols to
men's reverence, would assert falsely that they were
men. If Herodotus alone had said that the Egyptians
spoke in their histories of the gods as of men, when
he says, "What they told me concerning their religion
it is not my intention to repeat, except only the names
of their deities, things of very trifling importance,"[5]
it would behove us not to credit even Herodotus as
being a fabulist. But as Alexander and Hermes surnamed
Trismegistus, who shares with them in the attribute
of eternity, and innumerable others, not to name them
individually,[declare the same], no room is left even
for doubt that they, being kings, were esteemed gods.
That they were men, the most learned of the Egyptians
also testify, who, while saying that ether, earth,
sun, moon, are gods, regard the rest as mortal men,
and the temples as their sepulchres. Apollodorus, too,
asserts the same thing in his treatise concerning the
gods. But Herodotus calls even their sufferings mysteries.
"The ceremonies at the feast of Isis in the city
of Busiris have been already spoken of. It is there
that the whole multitude, both of men and women, many
thousands in number, beat them selves at the close
of the sacrifice in honour of a god whose name a religious
scruple forbids me to mention."[6] If they are
gods, they are also immortal; but if people are beaten
for them, and their sufferings are mysteries, they
are men, as Herodotus himself says: "Here, too,
in this same precinct of Minerva at Sais, is the burial-place
of one whom I think it not right to mention in such
a connection. It stands behind the temple against the
back wall, which it entirely covers. There are also
some large stone obelisks in the enclosure, and there
is a lake near them, adorned with an edging of stone.
In form it is circular, and in size, as it seemed to
me, about equal to the lake at Delos called the Hoop.
On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent by
night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning,
and this representation they call their mysteries."[7]
And not only is the sepulchre of Osiris shown, but
also his embalming: "When a body is brought to
them, they show the bearer various models of corpses
made in wood, and painted so as to resemble nature.
The most perfect is said to be after the manner of
him whom I do not think it religious to name in connection
with such a matter."[8]

CHAP. XXIX.--PROOF OF THE SAME FROM THE POETS.

But among the Greeks, also, those who are eminent
in poetry and history say the same thing. Thus of Heracles:--

"That lawless wretch, that man of brutal strength,
Deaf to Heaven's voice, the social rite transgressed."[9]

Such being his nature, deservedly did he go mad, and
deservedly did he light the funeral pile and burn himself
to death. Of Asklepius, Hesiod says:--

"The mighty father both of gods and men
Was filled with wrath, and from Olympus' top
With flaming thunderbolt cast down and slew
Latona's well-lov'd son--such was his ire."[10]

And Pindar:--

"But even wisdom is ensnared by gain.
The brilliant bribe of gold seen in the hand
Ev'n him[11] perverted: therefore Kronos' son
With both hands quickly stopp'd his vital breath,
And by a bolt of fire ensured his doom.'[12]

for the Deity is in want of nought, and is superior
to carnal desire, nor did they die; or, having been
born men, they were wicked by reason of ignorance,
and overcome by love of money. What more need I say,
or refer to Castor, or Pollux, or Amphiaraus, who,
having been born, so to speak, only the other day,
men of men, are looked upon as gods, when they imagine
even Ino after her madness and its consequent sufferings
to have become a goddess?

"Sea-rovers will her name Leucothea."[1]

And her son:--

"August Palaemon, sailors will invoke."

CHAP. XXX.--REASONS WHY DIVINITY HAS BEEN ASCRIBED TO
MEN.

For if detestable and god-hated men had the reputation
of being gods, and the daughter of Derceto, Semiramis,
a lascivious and blood-stained woman, was esteemed
a Syria goddess; and if, on account of Derceto, the
Syrians worship doves and Semiramis (for, a thing impossible,
a woman was changed into a dove: the story is in Ctesias),
what wonder if some should be called gods by their
people on the ground of their rule and sovereignty
(the Sibyl, of whom Plato also makes mention, says:--

"It was the generation then the tenth,
Of men endow'd with speech, since forth the flood
Had burst upon the men of former times,
And Kronos, Japetus, and Titan reigned,
Whom men, of Ouranos and Gaia
Proclaimed the noblest sons, and named them so,[2]
Because of men endowed with gift of speech
They were the first");[3]

and others for their strength, as Heracles and Perseus;
and others for their art, as Asclepius? Those, therefore,
to whom either the subjects gave honour or the rulers
themselves[assumed it], obtained the name, some from
fear, others from revenge. Thus Antinous, through the
benevolence of your ancestors towards their subjects,
came to be regarded as a god. But those who came after
adopted the worship without examination.

"The Cretans always lie; for they, O king,
Have built a tomb to thee who art not dead."[4]

Though you believe, O Callimachus, in the nativity of
Zeus, you do not believe in his sepulchre; and whilst
you think to obscure the truth, you in fact proclaim
him dead, even to those who are ignorant; and if you
see the cave, you call to mind the childbirth of Rhea;
but when you see the coffin, you throw a shadow over
his death, not considering that the unbegotten God
alone is eternal. For either the tales told by the
multitude and the poets about the gods are unworthy
of credit, and the reverence shown them is superfluous
(for those do not exist, the tales concerning whom
are untrue); or if the births, the amours, the murders,
the thefts, the castrations, the thunderbolts, are
true, they no longer exist, having ceased to be since
they were born, having previously had no being. And
on what principle must we believe some things and disbelieve
others, when the poets have written their stories in
order to gain greater veneration for them? For surely
those through whom they have got to be considered gods,
and who have striven to represent their deeds as worthy
of reverence, cannot have invented their sufferings.
That, therefore, we are not atheists, acknowledging
as we do God the Maker of this universe and His Logos,
has been proved according to my ability, if not according
to the importance of the subject.

CHAP. XXXI.--CONFUTATION OF THE OTHER CHARGES BROUGHT
AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS.

But they have further also made up stories against
us of impious feasts[5] and forbidden intercourse between
the sexes, both that they may appear to themselves
to have rational grounds of hatred, and because they
think either by fear to lead us away from our way of
life, or to render the rulers harsh and inexorable
by the magnitude of the charges they bring. But they
lose their labour with those who know that from of
old it has been the custom, and not in our time only,
for vice to make war on virtue. Thus Pythagoras, with
three hundred others, was burnt to death; Heraclitus
and Democritus were banished, the one from the city
of the Ephesians, the other from Abdera, because he
was charged with being mad; and the Athenians condemned
Socrates to death. But as they were none the worse
in respect of virtue because of the opinion of the
multitude, so neither does the undiscriminating calumny
of some persons cast any shade upon us as regards rectitude
of life, for with God we stand in good repute. Nevertheless,
I will meet these charges also, although I am well
assured that by what has been already said I have cleared
myself to you. For as you excel all men in intelligence,
you know that those whose life is directed towards
God as its rule, so that each one among

146

us may be blameless and irreproachable before Him, will
not entertain even the thought of the slightest sin.
For if we believed that we should live only the present
life, then we might be suspected of sinning, through
being enslaved to flesh and blood, or overmastered
by gain or carnal desire; but since we know that God
is witness to what we think and what we say both by
night and by day, and that He, being Himself light,
sees all things in our heart, we are persuaded that
when we are removed from the present life we shall
live another life, better than the present one, and
heavenly, not earthly (since we shall abide near God,
and with God, free from all change or suffering in
the soul, not as flesh, even though we shall have flesh,[1]
but as heavenly spirit), or, falling with the rest,
a worse one and in fire; for God has not made us as
sheep or beasts of burden, a mere by-work, and that
we should perish and be annihilated. On these grounds
it is not likely that we should wish to do evil, or
deliver ourselves over to the great Judge to be punished.

CHAP. XXXII.--ELEVATED MORALITY OF THE CHRISTIANS.

It is, however, nothing wonderful that they should
get up tales about us such as they tell of their own
gods, of the incidents of whose lives they make mysteries.
But it behoved them, if they meant to condemn shameless
and promiscuous intercourse, to hate either Zeus, who
begat children of his mother Rhea and his daughter
Kore, and took his own sister to wife, or Orpheus,
the inventor of these tales, which made Zeus more unholy
and detestable than Thyestes himself; for the latter
defiled his daughter in pursuance of an oracle, and
when he wanted to obtain the kingdom and avenge himself.
But we are so far from practising promiscuous intercourse,
that it is not lawful among us to indulge even a lustful
look. "For," saith He, "he that looketh
on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery
already in his heart."[2] Those, then, who are
forbidden to look at anything more than that for which
God formed the eyes, which were intended to be a light
to us, and to whom a wanton look is adultery, the eyes
being made for other purposes, and who are to be called
to account for their very thoughts, how can any one
doubt that such persons practise self-control? For
our account lies not with human laws, which a bad man
can evade (at the outset I proved to you, sovereign
lords, that our doctrine is from the teaching of God),
but we have a law which makes the measure of rectitude
to consist in dealing with our neighbour as ourselves.[3]
On this account, too, according to age, we recognise
some as sons and daughters, others we regard as brothers
and sisters,[4] and to the more advanced in life we
give the honour due to fathers and mothers. On behalf
of those, then, to whom we apply the names of brothers
and sisters, and other designations of relationship,
we exercise the greatest care that their bodies should
remain undefiled and uncorrupted; for the Logos[5]
again says to us, "If any one kiss a second time
because it has given him pleasure,[he sins];"
adding, "Therefore the kiss, or rather the salutation,
should be given with the greatest care, since, if there
be mixed with it the least defilement of thought, it
excludes us from eternal life."[6]

CHAP. XXXIII.--CHASTITY OF THE CHRISTIANS WITH RESPECT
TO MARRIAGE.

Therefore, having the hope of eternal life, we despise
the things of this life, even to the pleasures of the
soul, each of us reckoning her his wife whom he has
married according to the laws laid down by us, and
that only for the purpose of having children. For as
the husbandman throwing the seed into the ground awaits
the harvest, not sowing more upon it, so to us the
procreation of children is the measure of our indulgence
in appetite. Nay, you would find many among us, both
men and women, growing old unmarried, in hope of living
in closer communion with God.[7] But if the remaining
in virginity and in the state of an eunuch brings nearer
to God, while the indulgence of carnal thought and
desire leads away from Him, in those cases in which
we shun the thoughts, much more do we reject the deeds.
For we bestow our attention; not on the study of words,
but on the exhibition and teaching of actions,--that
a person should either remain as he was born, or be
content with one marriage; for a second marriage is
only a specious adultery.[8] "For whosoever puts
away his wife," says He, "and

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marries another, commits adultery;"[1] not permitting
a man to send her away whose virginity he has brought
to an end, nor to marry again. For he who deprives
himself of his first wife, even though she be dead,
is a cloaked adulterer,[2] resisting the hand of God,
because in the beginning God made one man and one woman,
and dissolving the strictest union of flesh with flesh,
formed for the intercourse of the race.

CHAP. XXXIV.--THE VAST DIFFERENCE IN MORALS BETWEEN
THE CHRISTIANS AND THEIR ACCUSERS.

But though such is our character (Oh! why should
I speak of things unfit to be uttered?), the things
said of us are an example of the proverb, "The
harlot reproves the chaste." For those who have
set up a market for fornication and established infamous
resorts for the young for every kind of vile pleasure,--who
do not abstain even from males, males with males committing
shocking abominations, outraging all the noblest and
comeliest bodies in all sorts of ways, so dishonouring
the fair workmanship of God (for beauty on earth is
not self-made, but sent hither by the hand and will
of God),--these men, I say, revile us for the very
things which they are conscious of themselves, and
ascribe to their own gods, boasting of them as noble
deeds, and worthy of the gods. These adulterers and
paederasts defame the eunuchs and the once-married
(while they themselves live like fishes;[3] for these
gulp down whatever fails in their way, and the stronger
chases the weaker: and, in fact, this is to feed upon
human flesh, to do violence in contravention of the
very laws which you and your ancestors, with due care
for all that is fair and right, have enacted), so that
not even the governors of the provinces sent by you
suffice for the hearing of the complaints against those,
to whom it even is not lawful, when they are struck,
not to offer themselves for more blows, nor when defamed
not to bless: for it is not enough to be just (and
justice is to return like for like), but it is incumbent
on us to be good and patient of evil.

CHAP. XXXV.--THE CHRISTIANS CONDEMN AND DETEST ALL CRUELTY.

What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm,
while such is our character, that we are murderers?
For we cannot eat human flesh till we have killed some
one. The former charge, therefore, being false, if
any one should ask them in regard to the second, whether
they have seen what they assert, not one of them would
be so barefaced as to say that he had. And yet we have
slaves, some more and some fewer, by whom we could
not help being seen; but even of these, not one has
been found to invent even such things against us. For
when they know that we cannot endure even to see a
man put to death, though justly; who of them can accuse
us of murder or cannibalism? Who does not reckon among
the things of greatest interest the contests of gladiators
and wild beasts, especially those which are given by
you? But we, deeming that to see a man put to death
is much the same as killing him, have abjured such
spectacles.[4] How, then, when we do not even look
on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can
we put people to death? And when we say that those
women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder,
and will have to give an account to God s for the abortion,
on what principle should we commit murder? For it does
not belong to the same person to regard the very foetus
in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object
of God's care, and when it has passed into life, to
kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those
who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and
on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy
it. But we are in all things always alike and the same,
submitting ourselves to reason, and not ruling over
it.

CHAP. XXXVI.--BEARING OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION
ON THE PRACTICES OF THE CHRISTIANS.

Who, then, that believes in a resurrection, would
make himself into a tomb for bodies that will rise
again? For it is not the part of the same persons to
believe that our bodies will rise again, and to eat
them as if they would not; and to think that the earth
will give back the bodies held by it, but that those
which a man has entombed in himself will not be demanded
back. On the contrary, it is reasonable to suppose,
that those who think they shall have no account to
give of the present life, ill or well spent, and that

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there is no resurrection, but calculate on the soul
perishing with the body, and being as it were quenched
in it, will refrain from no deed of daring; but as
for those who are persuaded that nothing will escape
the scrutiny of God, but that even the body which has
ministered to the irrational impulses of the soul,
and to its desires, will be punished along with it,
it is not likely that they will commit even the smallest
sin. But if to any one it appears sheer nonsense that
the body which has mouldered away, and been dissolved,
and reduced to nothing, should be reconstructed, we
certainly cannot with any reason be accused of wickedness
with reference to those that believe not, but only
of folly; for with the opinions by which we deceive
ourselves we injure no one else. But that it is not
our belief alone that bodies will rise again, but that
many philosophers also hold the same view, it is out
of place to show just now, lest we should be thought
to introduce topics irrelevant to the matter in hand,
either by speaking of the intelligible and the sensible,
and the nature of these respectively, or by contending
that the incorporeal is older than the corporeal, and
that the intelligible precedes the sensible, although
we become acquainted with the latter earliest, since
the corporeal is formed from the incorporeal, by the
combination with it of the intelligible, and that the
sensible is formed from the intelligible; for nothing
hinders, according to Pythagoras and Plato, that when
the dissolution of bodies takes place, they should,
from the very same elements of which they were constructed
at first, be constructed again.[1] But let us defer
the discourse concerning the resurrection.[2]

CHAP. XXXII.--ENTREATY TO BE FAIRLY JUDGED.

And now do you, who are entirely in everything,
by nature and by education, upright, and moderate,
and benevolent, and worthy of your rule, now that I
have disposed of the several accusations, and proved
that we are pious, and gentle, and temperate in spirit,
bend your royal head in approval. For who are more
deserving to obtain the things they ask, than those
who, like us, pray for your government, that you may,
as is most equitable, receive the kingdom, son from
father, and that your empire may receive increase and
addition, all men becoming subject to your sway? And
this is also for our advantage, that we may lead a
peaceable and quiet life, and may ourselves readily
perform all that is commanded us.[3]

THE TREATISE OF ATHENAGORAS, THE ATHENIAN, PHILOSOPHER AND CHRISTIAN, ON THE RESURRECTION
OF THE DEAD

CHAP. I.--DEFENCE OF THE TRUTH SHOULD PRECEDE DISCUSSIONS
REGARDING IT.[1]

BY the side of every opinion and doctrine which
agrees with the truth of things, there springs up some
falsehood; and it does so, not because it takes its
rise naturally from some fundamental principle, or
from some cause peculiar to the matter in hand, but
because it is invented on purpose by men who set a
value on the spurious seed, for its tendency to corrupt
the truth. This is apparent, in the first place, from
those who in former times addicted themselves to such
inquiries, and their want of agreement with their predecessors
and contemporaries, and then, not least, from the very
confusion which marks the discussions that are now
going on. For such men have left no truth free from
their calumnious attacks--not the being of God, not
His knowledge, not His operations, not those books
which follow by a regular and strict sequence from
these, and delineate for us the doctrines of piety.
On the contrary, some of them utterly, and once for
all, give up in despair the truth concerning these
things, and some distort it to suit their own views,
and some of set purpose doubt even of things which
are palpably evident. Hence I think that those who
bestow attention on such subjects should adopt two
lines of argument, one in defence of the truth, another
concerning the truth: that in defence of the truth,
for disbelievers and doubters; that concerning the
truth, for such as are candid and receive the truth
with readiness. Accordingly it behoves those who wish
to investigate these matters, to keep in view that
which the necessity of the case in each instance requires,
and to regulate their discussion by this; to accommodate
the order of their treatment of these subjects to what
is suitable to the occasion, and not for the sake of
appearing always to preserve the same method, to disregard
fitness and the place which properly belongs to each
topic. For, so far as proof and the natural order are
concerned, dissertations concerning the truth always
take precedence of those in defence of it; but, for
the purpose of greater utility, the order must be reversed,
and arguments in defence of it precede those concerning
it. For the farmer could not properly cast the seed
into the ground, unless he first extirpated the wild
wood, and whatever would be hurtful to the good seed;
nor the physician introduce any wholesome medicines
into the body that needed his care, if he did not previously
remove the disease within, or stay that which was approaching.
Neither surely can he who wishes to teach the truth
persuade any one by speaking about it, so long as there
is a false opinion lurking in the mind of his hearers,
and barring the entrance of his arguments. And, therefore,
from regard to greater utility, I myself sometimes
place arguments in defence of the truth before those
concerning the truth; and on the present occasion it
appears to me, looking at the requirements of the case,
not without advantage to follow the same method in
treating of the resurrection. For in regard to this
subject also we find some utterly disbelieving, and
some others doubting, and even among those who have
accepted the first principles some who are as much
at a loss what to believe as those who doubt; the most
unaccountable thing of all being, that they are in
this state of mind without having any ground whatsoever
in the matters themselves for their disbelief, or finding
it possible to assign any

150

reasonable cause why they disbelieve or experience any
perplexity.

CHAP. II.--A RESURRECTION IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE.

Let us, then, consider the subject in the way I
have indicated. If all disbelief does not arise from
levity and inconsideration, but if it springs up in
some minds on strong grounds and accompanied by the
certainty which belongs to truth [well and good]; for
it then maintains the appearance of being just, when
the thing itself to which their disbelief relates appears
to them unworthy of belief; but to disbelieve things
which are not deserving of disbelief, is the act of
men who do not employ a sound judgment about the truth.
It behoves, therefore, those who disbelieve or doubt
concerning the resurrection, to form their opinion
on the subject, not from any view they have hastily
adopted, and from what is acceptable to profligate
men, but either to assign the origin of men to no cause
(a notion which is very easily refuted), or, ascribing
the cause of all things to God, to keep steadily in
view the principle involved in this article of belief,
and from this to demonstrate that the resurrection
is utterly unworthy of credit. This they will succeed
in, if they are able to show that it is either impossible
for God, or contrary to His will, to unite and gather
together again bodies that are dead, or even entirely
dissolved into their elements, so as to constitute
the same persons. If they cannot do this, let them
cease from this godless disbelief, and from this blasphemy
against sacred things: for, that they do not speak
the truth when they say that it is impossible, or not
in accordance with the divine will, will clearly appear
from what I am about to say. A thing is in strictness
of language considered impossible to a person, when
it is of such a kind that he either does not know what
is to be done, or has not sufficient power for the
proper doing of the thing known, For he who is ignorant
of anything that requires to be done, is utterly unable
either to attempt or to do what he is ignorant of;
and he, too, who knows ever so well what has to be
done, and by what means, and how, but either has no
power at all to do the thing known, or not power sufficient,
will not even make the attempt, if he be wise and consider
his powers; and if he did attempt it without due consideration,
he would not accomplish his purpose. But it is not
possible for God to be ignorant, either of the nature
of the bodies that are to be raised, as regards both
the members entire and the particles of which they
consist, or whither each of the dissolved particles
passes, and what part of the elements has received
that which is dissolved and has passed into that with
which it has affinity, although to men it may appear
quite impossible that what has again combined according
to its nature with the universe should be separable
from it again. For He from whom, antecedently to the
peculiar formation of each, was not concealed either
the nature of the elements of which the bodies of men
were to consist, or the parts of these from which He
was about to take what seemed to Him suitable for the
formation of the human body, will manifestly, after
the dissolution of the whole, not be ignorant whither
each of the particles has passed which He took for
the construction of each. For, viewed relatively to
the order of things now obtaining among us, and the
judgment we form concerning other matters, it is a
greater thing to know beforehand that which has not
yet come to pass; but, viewed relatively to the majesty
and wisdom of God, both are according to nature, and
it is equally easy to know beforehand things that have
not yet come into existence, and to know things which
have been dissolved.

CHAP. III.--HE WHO COULD CREATE, CAN ALSO RAISE UP THE
DEAD.

Moreover also, that His power is sufficient for
the raising of dead bodies, is shown by the creation
of these same bodies. For if, when they did not exist,
He made at their first formation the bodies of men,
and their original elements, He will, when they are
dissolved, in whatever manner that may take place,
raise them again with equal ease: for this, too, is
equally possible to Him. And it is no damage to the
argument, if some suppose the first beginnings to be
from matter, or the bodies of men at least to be derived
from the elements as the first materials, or from seed.
For that power which could give shape to what is regarded
by them as shapeless matter, and adorn it, when destitute
of form and order, with many and diverse forms, and
gather into one the several portions of the elements,
and divide the seed which was one and simple into many,
and organize that which was unorganized, and give life
to that which had no life,that same power can reunite
what is dissolved, and raise up what is prostrate,
and restore the dead to life again, and put the corruptible
into a state of incorruption. And to the same Being
it will belong, and to the same power and skill, to
separate that which has been broken up and distributed
among a multitude of animals of all kinds which are
wont to have recourse to such bodies, and glut their
appetite upon them,--to separate this, I say, and unite
it again with the proper members and parts of members,
whether it has passed into some one of those animals,
or into many, or thence into others, or, after being
dissolved along with these, has been carried back again
to the original elements, resolved into these according
to a natural law--a matter this

151

which seems to have exceedingly confounded some, even
of those admired for wisdom, who, I cannot tell why,
think those doubts worthy of serious attention which
are brought forward by the many.

CHAP. IV.--OBJECTION FROM THE FACT THAT SOME HUMAN BODIES
HAVE BECOME PART OF OTHERS.

These persons, to wit, say that many bodies of those
who have come to an unhappy death in shipwrecks and
rivers have become food for fishes, and many of those
who perish in war, or who from some other sad cause
or state of things are deprived of burial, lie exposed
to become the food of any animals which may chance
to light upon them. Since, then, bodies are thus consumed,
and the members and parts composing them are broken
up and distributed among a great multitude of animals,
and by means of nutrition become incorporated with
the bodies of those that are nourished by them,--in
the first place, they say, their separation from these
is impossible; and besides this, in the second place,
they adduce another circumstance more difficult still.
When animals of the kind suitable for human food, which
have fed on the bodies of men, pass through their stomach,
and become incorporated with the bodies of those who
have partaken of them, it is an absolute necessity,
they say, that the parts of the bodies of men which
have served as nourishment to the animals which have
partaken of them should pass into other bodies of men,
since the animals which meanwhile have been nourished
by them convey the nutriment derived from those by
whom they were nourished into those men of whom they
become the nutriment. Then to this they tragically
add the devouring of offspring perpetrated by people
in famine and madness, and the children eaten by their
own parents through the contrivance of enemies, and
the celebrated Median feast, and the tragic banquet
of Thyestes; and they add, moreover, other such like
unheard-of occurrences which have taken place among
Greeks and barbarians: and from these things they establish,
as they suppose, the impossibility of the resurrection,
on the ground that the same parts cannot rise again
with one set of bodies, and with another as well; for
that either the bodies of the former possessors cannot
be reconstituted, the parts which composed them having
passed into others, or that, these having been restored
to the former, the bodies of the last possessors will
come short.

CHAP. V.--REFERENCE TO THE PROCESSES OF DIGESTION AND
NUTRITION.

But it appears to me that such persons, in the first
place, are ignorant of the power and skill of Him that
fashioned and regulates this universe, who has adapted
to the nature and kind of each animal the nourishment
suitable and correspondent to it, and has neither ordained
that everything in nature shall enter into union and
combination with every kind of body, nor is at any
loss to separate what has been so united, but grants
to the nature of each several created being or thing
to do or to suffer what is naturally suited to it,
and sometimes also hinders and allows or forbids whatever
He wishes, and for the purpose He wishes; and, moreover,
that they have not considered the power and nature
of each of the creatures that nourish or are nourished.
Otherwise they would have known that not everything
which is taken for food under the pressure of outward
necessity turns out to be suitable nourishment for
the animal, but that some things no sooner come into
contact with the plicatures of the stomach than they
are wont to be corrupter, and are vomited or voided,
or disposed of in some other way, so that not even
for a little time do they undergo the first and natural
digestion, much less become incorporated with that
which is to be nourished; as also, that not even everything
which has been digested in the stomach and received
the first change actually arrives at the parts to be
nourished, since some of it loses, its nutritive power
even in the stomach, and some during the second change,
and the digestion that takes place in the liver is
separated and passes into something else which is destitute
of the power to nourish; nay, that the change which
takes place in the liver does not all issue in nourishment
to men, but the matter changed is separated as refuse
according to its natural purpose; and that the nourishment
which is left in the members and parts themselves that
have to be nourished sometimes changes to something
else, according as that predominates which is present
in greater or less, abundance, and is apt to corrupt
or to turn into itself that which comes near it.

CHAP. VI.--EVERYTHING THAT IS USELESS OR HURTFUL IS
REJECTED.

Since, therefore, great difference of nature obtains
in all animals, and the very nourishment which is accordant
with nature is varied to suit each kind of animal,
and the body which is nourished; and as in the nourishment
of every animal there is a threefold cleansing and
separation, it follows that whatever is alien from
the nourishment of the animal must be wholly destroyed
and carried off to its natural place, or change into
something else, since it cannot coalesce with it; that
the power of the nourishing body must be suitable to
the nature of the animal to be nourished, and accordant
with its powers; and that this, when it has passed

152

through the strainers appointed for the purpose, and
been thoroughly purified by the natural means of purification,
must become a most genuine addition to the substance,--the
only thing, in fact, which any one calling things by
their right names would call nourishment at all; because
it rejects everything that is foreign and hurtful to
the constitution of the animal nourished and that mass
of superfluous food introduced merely for filling the
stomach and gratifying the appetite. This nourishment,
no one can doubt, becomes incorporated with the body
that is nourished, interwoven and blended with all
the members and parts of members; but that which is
different and contrary to nature is speedily corrupted
if brought into contact with a stronger power, but
easily destroys that which is overcome by it, and is
converted into hurtful humours and poisonous qualities,
because producing nothing akin or friendly to the body
which is to be nourished. And it is a very clear proof
of this, that in many of the animals nourished, pain,
or disease, or death follows from these things, if,
owing to a too keen appetite, they take in mingled
with their food something poisonous and contrary to
nature; which, of course, would tend to the utter destruction
of the body to be nourished, since that which is nourished
is nourished by substances akin to it and which accord
with its nature, but is destroyed by those of a contrary
kind. If, therefore, according to the different nature
of animals, different kinds of food have been provided
suitable to their nature, and none of that which the
animal may have taken, not even an accidental part
of it, admits of being blended with the body which
is nourished, but only that part which has been purified
by an entire digestion, and undergone a complete change
for union with a particular body, and adapted to the
parts which are to receive nourishment,--it is very
plain that none of the things contrary to nature can
be united with those bodies for which it is not a suitable
and correspondent nourishment, but either passes off
by the bowels before it produces some other humour,
crude and corrupter; or, if it continue for a longer
time, produces suffering or disease hard to cure, destroying
at the same time the natural nourishment, or even the
flesh itself which needs nourishment. But even though
it be expelled at length, overcome by certain medicines,
or by better food, or by the natural forces, it is
not got rid of without doing much harm, since it bears
no peaceful aspect towards what is natural, because
it cannot coalesce with nature.

CHAP. VII. --THE RESURRECTION-BODY DIFFERENT FROM THE
PRESENT.

Nay, suppose we were to grant that the nourishment
coming from these things (let it be so called, as more
accordant with the common way of speaking), although
against nature, is yet separated and changed into some
one of the moist or dry, or warm or cold, matters which
the body contains, our opponents would gain nothing
by the concession: for the bodies that rise again are
reconstituted from the parts which properly belong
to them, whereas no one of the things mentioned is
such a part, nor has it the form or place of a part;
nay, it does not remain always with the parts of the
body which are nourished, or rise again with the parts
that rise, since no longer does blood, or phlegm, or
bile, or breath, contribute anything to the life. Neither,
again, will the bodies nourished then require the things
they once required, seeing that, along with the want
and corruption of the bodies nourished, the need also
of those things by which they were nourished is taken
away. To this must be added, that if we were to suppose
the change arising from such nourishment to reach as
far as flesh, in that case too there would be no necessity
that the flesh recently changed by food of that kind,
if it became united to the body of some other man,
should again as a part contribute to the formation
of that body, since neither the flesh which takes it
up always retains what it takes, nor does the flesh
so incorporated abide and remain with that to which
it was added, but is subject to a great variety of
changes,--at one time being dispersed by toil or care,
at another time being wasted by grief or trouble or
disease, and by the distempers arising from being heated
or chilled, the humours which are changed with the
flesh and fat not receiving the nourishment so as to
remain what they are. But while such are the changes
to which the flesh is subject, we should find that
flesh, nourished by food unsuited to it, suffers them
in a much greater degree; now swelling out and growing
fat by what it has received, and then again rejecting
it in some way or other, and decreasing in bulk, from
one or more of the causes already mentioned; and that
that alone remains in the parts which is adapted to
bind together, or cover, or warm the flesh that has
been chosen by nature, and adheres to those parts by
which it sustains the life which is according to nature,
and fulfils the labours of that life. So that whether
the investigation in which we have just been engaged
be fairly judged of, or the objections urged against
our position be conceded, in neither case can it be
shown that what is said by our opponents is true, nor
can the bodies of men ever combine with those of the
same nature, whether at any time, through ignorance
and being cheated of their perception by some one else,
men have partaken of such a body, or of their own accord,
impelled by want or madness, they have defiled themselves
with

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the body of one of like form; for we are very well aware
that some brutes have human forms, or have a nature
compounded of men and brutes, such as the more daring
of the poets are accustomed to represent.

CHAP. VIII.--HUMAN FLESH NOT THE PROPER OR NATURAL FOOD
OF MEN.

But what need is there to speak of bodies not allotted
to be the food of any animal, and destined only for
a burial in the earth in honour of nature, since the
Maker of the world has not alloted any animal whatsoever
as food to those of the same kind, although some others
of a different kind serve for food according to nature?
If, indeed, they are able to show that the flesh of
men was alloted to men for food, there will be nothing
to hinder its being according to nature that they should
eat one another, just like anything else that is allowed
by nature, and nothing to prohibit those who dare to
say such things from regaling themselves with the bodies
of their dearest friends as delicacies, as being especially
suited to them, and to entertain their living friends
with the same fare. But if it be unlawful even to speak
of this, and if for men to partake of the flesh of
men is a thing most hateful and abominable, and more
detestable than any other unlawful and unnatural food
or act; and if what is against nature can never pass
into nourishment for the limbs and parts requiring
it, and what does not pass into nourishment can never
become united with that which it is not adapted to
nourish,--then can the bodies of men never combine
with bodies like themselves, to which this nourishment
would be against nature, even though it were to pass
many times through their stomach, owing to some most
bitter mischance; but, removed from the influence of
the nourishing power, and scattered to those parts
of the universe again from which they obtained their
first origin, they are united with these for as long
a period of time as may be the lot of each; and, separated
thence again by the skill and power of Him who has
fixed the nature of every animal, and furnished it
with its peculiar powers, they are united suitably,
each to each, whether they have been burnt up by fire,
or rotted by water, or consumed by wild beasts, or
by any other animals, or separated from the entire
body and dissolved before the other parts; and, being
again united with one another, they occupy the same
place for the exact construction and formation of the
same body, and for the resurrection and life of that
which was dead, or even entirely dissolved. To expatiate
further, however, on these topics, is not suitable;
for all men are agreed in their decision respecting
them,--those at least who are not half brutes.

CHAP. IX.--ABSURDITY OF ARGUING FROM MAN'S IMPOTENCY.

As there are many things of more importance to the
inquiry before us, I beg to be excused from replying
for the present to those who take refuge in the works
of men, and even the constructors of them, who are
unable to make anew such of their works as are broken
in pieces, or worn out by time, or otherwise destroyed,
and then from the analogy of potters and carpenters
attempt to show that God neither can will, nor if He
willed would be able, to raise again a body that is
dead, or has been dissolved,--not considering that
by such reasoning they offer the grossest insult to
God, putting, as they do, on the same level the capabilities
of things which are altogether different, or rather
the natures of those who use them, and comparing the
works of art with those of nature. To bestow any serious
attention on such arguments would be not undeserving
of censure, for it is really foolish to reply to superficial
and trifling objections. It is surely far more probable,
yea, most absolutely true, to say that what is impossible
with men is possible with God. And if by this statement
of itself as probable, and by the whole investigation
in which we have just been engaged reason shows it
to be possible, it is quite clear that it is not impossible.
No, nor is it such a thing as God could not will.

CHAP. X.--IT CANNOT BE SHOWN THAT GOD DOES NOT WILL
A RESURRECTION.

For that which is not accordant with His will is
so either as being unjust or as unworthy of Him. And
again, the injustice regards either him who is to rise
again, or some other than he. But it is evident that
no one of the beings exterior to him, and that are
reckoned among the things that have existence, is injured.
Spiritual natures (<greek>nohtai</greek>
<greek>fuseis</greek>) cannot be injured
by the resurrection of men, for the resurrection of
men is no hindrance to their existing, nor is any loss
or violence inflicted on them by it; nor, again, would
the nature of irrational or inanimate beings sustain
wrong, for they will have no existence after the resurrection,
and no wrong can be done to that which is not. But
even if any one should suppose them to exist for ever,
they would not suffer wrong by the renewal of human
bodies: for if now, in being subservient to the nature
of men and their necessities while they require them,
and subjected to the yoke and every kind of drudgery,
they suffer no wrong, much more, when men have become
immortal and free from want, and no longer need their
service, and when they are themselves liberated from
bondage, will they suffer no wrong. For if they had
the gift of speech, they would not bring against the
Creator the charge of making them, contrary to justice,

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inferior to men because they did not share in the same
resurrection. For to creatures whose nature is not
alike the Just Being does not assign a like end. And,
besides, with creatures that have no notion of justice
there can be no complaint of injustice. Nor can it
be said either that there is any injustice done as
regards the man to be raised, for he consists of soul
and body, and he suffers no wrong as to either soul
or body. No person in his senses will affirm that his
soul suffers wrong, because, in speaking so, he would
at the same time be unawares reflecting on the present
life also; for if now, while dwelling in a body subject
to corruption and suffering, it has had no wrong done
to it much less will it suffer wrong when living in
conjunction with a body which is free from corruption
and suffering. The body, again, suffers no wrong; for
if no wrong is done to it now while united a corruptible
thing with an incorruptible, manifestly will it not
be wronged when united an incorruptible with an incorruptible.
No; nor can any one say that it is a work unworthy
of God to raise up and bring together again a body
which has been dissolved: for if the worse was not
unworthy of Him, namely, to make the body which is
subject to corruption and suffering, much more is the
better not unworthy, to make one not liable to corruption
or suffering.

CHAP. XI.--RECAPITULATION.

If, then, by means of that which is by nature first
and that which follows from it, each of the points
investigated has been proved, it is very evident that
the resurrection of dissolved bodies is a work which
the Creator can perform, and can will, and such as
is worthy of Him: for by these considerations the falsehood
of the contrary opinion has been shown, and the absurdity
of the position taken by disbelievers. For why should
I speak of their correspondence each with each, and
of their connection with one another? If indeed we
ought to use the word connection, as though they were
separated by some difference of nature; and not rather
say, that what God can do He can also will, and that
what God can will it is perfectly possible for Him
to do, and that it is accordant with the dignity of
Him who wills it. That to discourse concerning the
truth is one thing, and to discourse in defence of
it is another, has been sufficiently explained in the
remarks already made, as also in what respects they
differ from each other, and when and in dealing with
whom. they are severally useful; but perhaps there
is no reason why, with a view to the general certainty,
and because of the connection of what has been said
with what remains, we should not make a fresh beginning
from these same points and those which are allied to
them. To the one kind of argument it naturally pertains
to hold the foremost place, to the other to attend
upon the first, and clear the way, and to remove whatever
is obstructive or hostile. The discourse concerning
the truth, as being necessary to all men for certainty
and safety, holds the first place, whether in nature,
or order, or usefulness: in nature, as furnishing the
knowledge of the subject; in order, as being in those
things and along with those things which it informs
us of; in usefulness, as being a guarantee of certainty
and safety to those who become acquainted with it.
The discourse in defence of the truth is inferior in
nature and force, for the refutation of falsehood is
less important than the establishment of truth; and
second in order, for it employs its strength against
those who hold false opinions, and false opinions are
an aftergrowth from another sowing and from degeneration.
But, notwithstanding all this, it is often placed first,
and sometimes is found more useful, because it removes
and clears away beforehand the disbelief which disquiets
some minds, and the doubt or false opinion of such
as have but recently come over. And yet each of them
is referrible to the same end, for the refutation of
falsehood and the establishment of truth both have
piety for their object: not, indeed, that they are
absolutely one and the same, but the one is necessary,
as I have said, to all who believe, and to those who
are concerned about the truth and their own salvation;
but the other proves to be more useful on some occasions,
and to some persons, and in dealing with some. Thus
much by way of recapitulation, to recall what has been
already said. We must now pass on to what we proposed,
and Show the truth of the doctrine concerning the resurrection,
both from the cause itself, according to which, and
on account of which, the first man and his posterity
were created, although they were not brought into existence
in the same manner, and from the common nature of all
men as men; and further, from the judgment of their
Maker upon them according to the time each has lived,
and according to the rules by which each has regulated
his behaviour,--a judgment which no one can doubt will
be just.

CHAP. XII.--ARGUMENT FOR THE RESURRECTION. FROM THE
PURPOSE CONTEMPLATED IN MAN'S CREATION.

The argument from the cause will appear, if we consider
whether man was made at random and in vain, or for
some purpose; and if for some purpose, whether simply
that he might live and continue in the natural condition
in which he was created, or for the use of another;
and if with a view to use, whether for that of the

155

Creator Himself, or of some one of the beings who belong
to Him, and are by Him deemed worthy Of greater care.
Now, if we consider this in the most general way, we
find that a person of sound mind, and who is moved
by a rational judgment to do anything, does nothing
in vain which he does intentionally, but either for
his own use, or for the use of some other person for
whom he cares, or for the sake of the work itself,
being moved by some natural inclination and affection
towards its production. For instance (to make use of
an illustration, that our meaning may be clear), a
man makes a house for his own use, but for cattle and
camels and other animals of which he has need he makes
the shelter suitable for each of them; not for his
own use, if we regard the appearance only, though for
that, if we look at the end he has in view, but as
regards the immediate object, from concern for those
for whom he cares. He has children, too, not for his
own use, nor for the sake of anything else belonging
to him, but that those who spring from him may exist
and continue as long as possible, thus by the succession
of children and grandchildren comforting himself respecting
the close of his own life, and hoping in this way to
immortalize the mortal. Such is the procedure of men.
But God can neither have made man in vain, for He is
wise, and no work of wisdom is in vain; nor for His
own use, for He is in want of nothing. But to a Being
absolutely in need of nothing, no one of His works
can contribute anything to His own use. Neither, again,
did He make man for the sake of any of the other works
which He has made. For nothing that is endowed with
reason and judgment has been created, or is created,
for the use of another, whether greater or less than
itself, but for the sake of the life and continuance
of the being itself so created. For reason cannot discover
any use which might be deemed a cause for the creation
of men, since immortals are free from want, and in
need of no help from men in order to their existence;
and irrational beings are by nature in a state of subjection,
and perform those services for men for which each of
them was intended, but are not intended in their turn
to make use of men: for it neither was nor is right
to lower that which rules and takes the lead to the
use of the inferior, or to subject the rational to
the irrational, which is not suited to rule. Therefore,
if man has been created neither without cause and in
vain (for none of God's works is in vain, so far at
least as the purpose of their Maker is concerned),
nor for the use of the Maker Himself, or of any of
the works which have proceeded from Him, it is quite
clear that although, according to the first and more
general view of the subject, God made man for Himself,
and in pursuance of the goodness and wisdom which are
conspicuous throughout the creation, yet, according
to the view which more nearly touches the beings created,
He made him for the sake of the life of those created,
which is not kindled for a little while and then extinguished.
For to creeping things, I suppose, and birds, and fishes,
or, to speak more generally, all irrational creatures,
God has assigned such a life as that; but to those
who bear upon them the image of the Creator Himself,
and are endowed with understanding, and blessed with
a rational judgment, the Creator has assigned perpetual
duration, in order that, recognising their own Maker,
and His power and skill, and obeying law and justice,
they may pass their whole existence free from suffering,
in the possession of those qualifies with which they
have bravely borne their preceding life, although they
lived in corruptible and earthly bodies. For whatever
has been created for the sake of something else, when
that has ceased to be for the sake of which it was
created, will itself also fitly cease to be, and will
not continue to exist in vain, since, among the works
of God, that which is useless can have no place; but
that which was created for the very purpose of existing
and living a life naturally suited to it, since the
cause itself is bound up with its nature, and is recognised
only in connection with existence itself, can never
admit of any cause which shall utterly annihilate its
existence. But since this cause is seen to lie in perpetual
existence, the being so created must be preserved for
ever, doing and experiencing what is suitable to its
nature, each of the two parts of which it consists
contributing what belongs to it, so that the soul may
exist and remain without change in the nature in which
it was made, and discharge its appropriate functions
(such as presiding over the impulses of the body, and
judging of and measuring that which occurs from time
to time by the proper standards and measures), and
the body be moved according to its nature towards its
appropriate objects, and undergo the changes allotted
to it, and, among the rest (relating to age, or appearance,
or size), the resurrection. For the resurrection is
a species of change, and the last of all, and a change
for the better of what still remains in existence at
that time.

CHAP. XIII.--CONTINUATION OF THE ARGUMENT.

[1]Confident of these things, no less than of those
which have already come to pass, and reflecting on
our own nature, we are content with a life associated
with neediness and corruption, as suited to our present
state of existence, and

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we stedfastly hope for a continuance of being in immortality;
and this we do not take without foundation from the
inventions of men, feeding ourselves on false hopes,
but our belief rests on a most infallible guarantee--the
purpose of Him who fashioned us, according to which
He made man of an immortal soul[1] and a body, and
furnished him with understanding and an innate law
for the preservation and safeguard of the things given
by Him as suitable to an intelligent existence and
a rational life: for we know well that He would not
have fashioned such a being, and furnished him with
everything belonging to perpetuity, had He not intended
that what was so created should continue in perpetuity.
If, therefore, the Maker of this universe made man
with a view to his partaking of an intelligent life,
and that, having become a spectator of His grandeur,
and of the wisdom which is manifest in all things,
he might continue always in the contemplation of these;
then, according to the purpose of his Author, and the
nature which he has received, the cause of his creation
is a pledge of his continuance for ever, and this continuance
is a pledge of the resurrection, without which man
could not continue. So that, from what has been said,
it is quite clear that the resurrection is plainly
proved by the cause of man's creation, and the purpose
of Him who made him. Such being the nature of the cause
for which man has been brought into this world, the
next thing will be to consider that which immediately
follows, naturally or in the order proposed; and in
our investigation the cause of their creation is followed
by the nature of the men so created, and the nature
of those created by the just judgment of their Maker
upon them, and all these by the end of their existence.
Having investigated therefore the point placed first
in order, we must now go on to consider the nature
of men.

CHAP. XIV.--THE RESURRECTION DOES NOT REST SOLELY ON
THE FACT OF A FUTURE JUDGMENT.

The proof[2] of the several doctrines of which the
truth consists, or of any marten whatsoever proposed
for examination, if it is to produce an unwavering
confidence in what is said, must begin, not from anything
without, nor from what certain persons think or have
thought,[3] but from the common and natural notion[4]
of the matter, or from the connection of secondary
troths with primary ones. For the question relates
either to primary beliefs, and then all that is necessary
is reminiscence, so as to stir up the natural notion;
or to things which naturally follow from the first
and to their natural sequence. And in these things
we must observe order, showing what strictly follows
from the first truths, or from those which are placed
first, so as neither to be unmindful of the truth,
or of our certainty respecting it, nor to confound
the things arranged by nature and distinguished from
each other, or break up the natural order. Hence I
think it behoves those who desire to handle the subject
with fairness, and who wish to form an intelligent
judgment whether there is a resurrection or not, first
to consider attentively the force of the arguments
contributing to the proof of this, and what place each
of them holds--which is first, which second, which
third, and which last. And in the arrangement of these
they should place tint the cause of the creation of
men,--namely, the purpose of the Creator in making
man; and then connect with this, as is suitable, the
nature of the men so created; not as being second in
order, but because we are unable to pass our judgment
on both at the same time, although they have the closest
natural connection with each other, and are of equal
force in reference to the subject before us. But while
from these proofs as the primary ones, and as being
derived from the work of creation, the resurrection
is clearly demonstrated, none the less can we gain
conviction respecting it from the arguments taken from
providence,--I mean from the reward or punishment due
to each man in accordance with just judgment, and from
the end of human existence. For many, in discussing
the subject of the resurrection, have rested the whole
cause on the third argument alone, deeming that the
cause of the resurrection is the judgment. But the
fallacy of this is very clearly shown, from the fact
that, although all human beings who die rise again,
yet not all who rise again are to be judged: for if
only a just judgment were the cause of the resurrection,
it would of course follow that those who had done neither
evil nor good--namely, very young children[5]--would
not rise again; but seeing that all are to rise again,
those who have died in infancy as well as others, they
too justify our conclusion that the resurrection takes
place not for the sake of the judgment as the primary
reason, but in consequence of the purpose of God in
forming men, and the nature of the beings so formed.

CHAP. XV.--ARGUMENT FOR THE RESURRECTION FROM THE NATURE
OF MAN.

But while the cause discoverable in the creation
of men is of itself sufficient to prove that the resurrection
follows by natural sequence on

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the dissolution of bodies, yet it is perhaps right not
to shrink from adducing either of the proposed arguments,
but, agreeably to what has been said, to point out
to those who are not able of themselves to discern
them, the arguments from each of the truths evolved
from the primary; and first and foremost, the nature
of the men created, which conducts us to the same notion,
and has the same force as evidence of the resurrection.
For if the whole nature of men in general is composed
of an immortal soul and a body which was fitted to
it in the creation, and if neither to the nature of
the soul by itself, nor to the nature of the body separately,
has God assigned such a creation or such a life and
entire course of existence as this, but to men compounded
of the two, in order that they may, when they have
passed through their present existence, arrive at one
common end, with the same elements of which they are
composed at their birth and during life, it unavoidably
follows, since one living-being is formed from the
two, experiencing whatever the soul experiences and
whatever the body experiences, doing and performing
whatever requires the judgment of the senses or of
the reason, that the whole series of these things must
be referred to some one end, in order that they all,
and by means of all,namely, man's creation, man's nature,
man's life, man's doings and sufferings, his course
of existence, and the end suitable to his nature,--may
concur in one harmony and the same common experience.
But if there is some one harmony and community of experience
belonging to the whole being, whether of the things
which spring from the soul or of those which are accomplished
by means of the body, the end for all these must also
be one. And the end will be in strictness one, if the
being whose end that end is remains the same in its
constitution; and the being-will be exactly the same,
if all those things of which the being consists as
parts are the same. And they will be the same in respect
of their peculiar union, if the parts dissolved are
again united for the constitution of the being. And
the constitution of the same men of necessity proves
that a resurrection will follow of the dead and dissolved
bodies; for without this, neither could the same parts
be united according to nature with one another, nor
could the nature of the same men be reconstituted.
And if both understanding and reason have been given
to men for the discernment of things which are perceived
by the understanding, and not of existences only, but
also of the goodness and wisdom and rectitude of their
Giver, it necessarily follows that, since those things
continue for the sake of which the rational judgment
is given, the judgment given for these things should
also continue. But it is impossible for this to continue,
unless the nature which has received it, and in which
it adheres, continues. But that which has received
both understanding and reason is man, not the soul
by itself. Man, therefore, who consists of the two
parts, must continue for ever. But it is impossible
for him to continue unless he rise again. For if no
resurrection were to take place, the nature of men
as men would not continue. And if the nature of men
does not continue, in vain has the soul been fitted
to the need of the body and to its experiences; in
vain has the body been lettered so that it cannot obtain
what it longs for, obedient to the reins of the soul,
and guided by it as with a bridle; in vain is the understanding,
in vain is wisdom, and the observance of rectitude,
or even the practice of every virtue, and the enactment
and enforcement of laws,--to say all in a word, whatever
is noble in men or for men's sake, or rather the very
creation and nature of men. But if vanity is utterly
excluded from all the works of God, and from all the
gifts bestowed by Him, the conclusion is unavoidable,
that, along with the interminable duration of the soul,
there will be a perpetual continuance of the body according
to its proper nature.

CHAP. XVI--ANALOGY OF DEATH AND SLEEP, AND CONSEQUENT
ARGUMENT FOR THE RESURRECTION.

And let no one think it strange that we call by
the name of life a continuance of being which is interrupted
by death and corruption; but let him consider rather
that this word has not one meaning only, nor is there
only one measure of continuance, because the nature
also of the things that continue is not one. For if
each of the things that continue has its continuance
according to its peculiar nature, neither in the case
of those who are wholly incorruptible and immortal
shall we find the continuance like ours, because the
natures of superior beings do not take the level of
such as are inferior; nor in men is it proper to look
for a continuance invariable and unchangeable; inasmuch
as the former are from the first created immortal,
and continue to exist without end by the simple will
of their Maker, and men, in respect of the soul, have
from their first origin an unchangeable continuance,
but in respect of the body obtain immortality by means
of change. This is what is meant by the doctrine of
the resurrection; and, looking to this, we both await
the dissolution of the body, as the sequel to a life
of want and corruption, and after this we hope for
a continuance with immortality,[1] not putting either
our death

158

on a level with the death of the irrational animals,
or the continuance of man with the continuance of immortals,
lest we should unawares in this way put human nature
and life on a level with things with which it is not
proper to compare them. It ought not, therefore, to
excite dissatisfaction, if some inequality appears
to exist in regard to the duration of men; nor, because
the separation of the soul from the members of the
body and the dissolution of its parts interrupts the
continuity of life, must we therefore despair of the
resurrection. For although the relaxation of the senses
and of the physical powers, which naturally takes place
in sleep, seems to interrupt the sensational life when
men sleep at equal intervals of time, and, as it were,
come back to life again, yet we do not refuse to call
it life; and for this reason, I suppose, some call
sleep the brother of death,[1] not as deriving their
origin from the same ancestors and fathers, but because
those who are dead and those who sleep are subject
to similar states, as regards at least the stillness
and the absence of all sense of the present or the
past, or rather of existence itself and their own life.
If, therefore, we do not refuse to call by the name
of life the life of men full of such inequality from
birth to dissolution, and interrupted by all those
things which we have before mentioned, neither ought
we to despair of the life succeeding to dissolution,
such as involves the resurrection, although for a time
it is interrupted by the separation of the soul from
the body.

CHAP. XVII.--THE SERIES OF CHANGES WE CAN NOW TRACE
IN MAN RENDERS A RESURRECTION PROBABLE.

For this nature of men, which has inequality allotted
to it from the first, and according to the purpose
of its Maker, has an unequal life and continuance,
interrupted sometimes by sleep, at another time by
death, and by the changes incident to each period of
life, whilst those which follow the first are not clearly
seen beforehand. Would any one have believed, unless
taught by experience, that in the soft seed alike in
all its parts there was deposited such a variety and
number of great powers, or of masses, which in this
way arise and become consolidated--I mean of bones,
and nerves, and cartilages, of muscles too, and flesh,
and intestines, and the other parts of the body? For
neither in the yet moist seed is anything of this kind
to be seen, nor even in infants do any of those things
make their appearance which pertain to adults, or in
the adult period what belongs to those who are past
their prime, or in these what belongs to such as have
grown old. But although some of the things I have said
exhibit not at all, and others but faintly, the natural
sequence and the changes that come upon the nature
of men, yet all who are not blinded in their judgment
of these matters by vice or sloth, know that there
must be first the depositing of the seed, and that
when this is completely organized in respect of every
member and part and the progeny comes forth to the
light, there comes the growth belonging to the first
period of life, and the maturity which attends growth,
and after the maturity the slackening of the physical
powers till old age, and then, when the body is worn
out, its dissolution. As, therefore, in this matter,
though neither the seed has inscribed upon it the life
or form of men, nor the life the dissolution into the
primary elements; the succession of natural occurrences
makes things credible which have no credibility from
the phenomena themselves, much more does reason, tracing
out the truth from the natural sequence, afford ground
for believing in the resurrection, since it is safer
and stronger than experience for establishing the truth.

CHAP. XVIII.--JUDGMENT MUST HAVE REFERENCE BOTH TO SOUL
AND BODY: THERE WILL THEREFORE BE A RESURRECTION.

The arguments I just now proposed for examination,
as establishing the truth of the resurrection, are
all of the same kind, since they all start from the
same point; for their starting: point is the origin
of the first men by creation. But while some of them
derive their strength from the starting-point itself
from which they take their rise, others, consequent
upon the nature and the life of men, acquire their
credibility from the superintendence of God over us;
for the cause according to which, and on account of
which, men have come into being, being closely connected
with the nature of men, derives its force from creation;
but the argument from rectitude, which represents God
as judging men according as they have lived well or
ill, derives its force from the end of their existence:
they come into being on the former ground, but their
state depends more on God's superintendence. And now
that the matters which come first have been demonstrated
by me to the best of my ability, it will be well to
prove our proposition by those also which come after--I
mean by the reward or punishment due to each man in
accordance with righteous judgment, and by the final
cause of human existence; and of these I put foremost
that which takes the lead by nature, and inquire first
into the argument relating to the judgment: premising
only one thing, from concern for the principle which
appertains to the matters before us, and for order--namely,
that it is incumbent on those who admit God to be the
Maker of this universe,

159

to ascribe to His wisdom and rectitude the preservation
and care of all that has been created if they wish
to keep to their own principles; and with such views
to hold that nothing either in earth or in heaven is
without guardianship or providence, but that; on the
contrary, to everything, invisible and visible alike,
small and great, the attention of the Creator reaches;
for all created things require the attention of the
Creator,[1] and each one in particular, according to
its nature and the end for which it was made: though
I think it would be a useless expenditure of trouble
to go through the list now, or distinguish between
the several cases, or mention in detail what is suitable
to each nature. Man, at all events, of whom it is now
our business to speak, as being in want, requires food;
as being mortal, posterity; as being rational, a process
of judgment. But if each of these things belongs to
man by nature, and he requires food for his life, and
requires posterity for the continuance of the race,
and requires a judgment in order that food and posterity
may be according to law, it of course follows, since
food and posterity refer to both together, that the
judgment must be referred to them too (by both together
I mean man, consisting of soul and body), and that
such man becomes accountable for all his actions, and
receives for them either reward or punishment. Now,
if the righteous judgment awards to both together its
retribution for the deeds wrought; and if it is not
proper that either the soul alone should receive the
wages of the deeds wrought in union with the body (for
this of itself has no inclination to the faults which
are committed in connection with the pleasure or food
and culture of the body), or that the body alone should
(for this of itself is incapable of distinguishing
law and justice), but man, composed of these, is subjected
to trial for each of the deeds wrought by him; and
if reason does not find this happening either in this
life (for the award according to merit finds no place
in the present existence, since many atheists and persons
who practise every iniquity and wickedness live on
to the last, unvisited by calamity, whilst, on the
contrary, those who have manifestly lived an exemplary
life in respect of every Virtue, live in pain, in insult,
in calumny and outrage, and suffering of all kinds)
or after death (for both together no longer exist,
the soul being separated from the body, and the body
itself being resolved again into the materials out
of which it was composed, and no longer retaining anything
of its former structure or form, much less the remembrance
of its actions): the result of all this is very plain
to every one,--namely, that, in the language of the
apostle, "this corruptible (and dissoluble) must
put on incorruption,"[2] in order that those who
were dead, having been made alive by the resurrection,
and the parts that were separated and entirely dissolved
having been again united, each one may, in accordance
with justice, receive what he has done by the body,
whether it be good or bad.

CHAP. XIX.--MAN WOULD BE MORE UNFAVOURABLY SITUATED
THAN THE BEASTS IF THERE WERE NO RESURRECTION.

In replying, then, to those who acknowledge a divine
superintendence, and admit the same principles as we
do, yet somehow depart from their own admissions, one
may use such arguments as those which have been adduced,
and many more than these, should he be disposed to
amplify what has been said only concisely and in a
cursory manner. But in dealing with those who differ
from us concerning primary truths, it will perhaps
be well to lay down another principle antecedent to
these, joining with them in doubting of the things
to which their opinions relate, and examining the matter
along with them in this manner--whether the life of
men, and their entire course of existence, is overlooked,
and a sort of dense darkness is poured down upon the
earth, hiding in ignorance and silence both the men
themselves and their actions; or whether it is much
safer to be of opinion that the Maker presides over
the things which He Himself has made, inspecting all
things whatsoever which exist, or come into existence,
Judge of both deeds and purposes. For if no judgment
whatever were to be passed on the actions of men, men
would have no advantage over the irrational creatures,
but rather would fare worse than these do, inasmuch
as they keep in subjection their passions, and concern
themselves about piety, and righteousness, and the
other virtues; and a life after the manner of brutes
would be the best, virtue would be absurd, the threat
of judgment a matter for broad laughter, indulgence
in every kind of pleasure the highest good, and the
common resolve of all these and their one law would
be that maxim, so dear to the intemperate and lewd,
"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."
For the termination of such a life is not even pleasure,
as some suppose, but utter insensibility. But if the
Maker of men takes any concern about His own works,
and the distinction is anywhere to be found between
those who have lived well and ill, it must be either
in the present life, while men are still living who
have conducted themselves virtuously or vicious-

160

ly, or after death, when men are in a state of separation
and dissolution. But according to neither of these
suppositions can we find a just judgment taking place;
for neither do the good in the present life obtain
the rewards of virtue, nor yet do the bad receive the
wages of vice. I pass over the fact, that so long as
the nature we at present possess is preserved, the
moral nature is not able to bear a punishment commensurate
with the more numerous or more serious faults. For
the robber, or ruler, or tyrant, who has unjustly put
to death myriads on myriads, could not by one death
make restitution for these deeds; and the man who holds
no true opinion concerning God, but lives in all outrage
and blasphemy, despises divine things, breaks the laws,
commits outrage against boys and women alike, razes
cities unjustly, burns houses with their inhabitants,
and devastates a country, and at the same time destroys
inhabitants of cities and peoples, and even an entire
nation--how in a mortal body could he endure a penalty
adequate to these crimes, since death prevents the
deserved punishment, and the mortal nature does not
suffice for any single one of his deeds? It is proved,
therefore, that neither in the present life is there
a judgment according to men's deserts, nor after death.

CHAP. XX.--MAN MUST BE POSSESSED BOTH OF A BODY AND
SOUL HEREAFTER, THAT THE JUDGMENT PASSED UPON HIM MAY
BE JUST.

For either death is the entire extinction of life,
the soul being dissolved and corrupted along with the
body, or the soul remains by itself, incapable of dissolution,
of dispersion, of corruption, whilst the body is corrupted
and dissolved, retaining no longer any remembrance
of past actions, nor sense of what it experienced in
connection with the soul. If the life of men is to
be utterly extinguished, it is manifest there will
be no care for men who are not living, no judgment
respecting those who have lived in virtue or in vice;
but there will rush in again upon us whatever belongs
to a lawless life, and the swarm of absurdities which
follow from it, and that which is the summit of this
lawlessness--atheism. But if the body were to be corrupted,
and each of the dissolved particles to pass to its
kindred element, yet the soul to remain by itself as
immortal, neither on this supposition would any judgment
on the soul take place, since there would be an absence
of equity: for it is unlawful to suspect that any judgment
can proceed out of God and from God which is wanting
in equity. Yet equity is wanting to the judgment, if
the being is not preserved in existence who practised
righteousness or lawlessness: for that which practised
each of the things in life on which the judgment is
passed was man, not soul by itself. To sum up all in
a word, this view will in no case consist with equity.

CHAP. XXI.--CONTINUATION OF THE ARGUMENT.

For if good deeds are rewarded, the body will clearly
be wronged, inasmuch as it has shared with the soul
in the toils connected with well-doing, but does not
share in the reward of the good deeds, and because,
though the soul is often excused for certain faults
on the ground of the body's neediness and want, the
body itself is deprived of all share in the good deeds
done, the toils on behalf of which it helped to bear
during life. Nor, again, if faults are judged, is the
soul dealt fairly with, supposing it alone to pay the
penalty for the faults it committed through being solicited
by the body and drawn away by it to its own appetites
and motions, at one time being seized upon and carried
off, at another attracted in some very violent manner,
and sometimes concurring with it by way of kindness
and attention to its preservation. How can it possibly
be other than unjust for the soul to be judged by itself
in respect of things towards which in its own nature
it feels no appetite, no motion, no impulse, such as
licentiousness, violence, covetousness, injustice,
and the unjust acts arising out of these? For if the
majority of such evils come from men's not having the
mastery of the passions which solicit them, and they
are solicited by the neediness and want of the body,
and the care and attention required by it (for these
are the motives for every acquisition of property,
and especially for the using of it, and moreover for
marriage and all the actions of life, in which things,
and in connection with which, is seen what is faulty
and what is not so), how can it be just for the soul
alone to be judged in respect of those things which
the body is the first to be sensible of, and in which
it draws the soul away to sympathy and participation
in actions with a view to things Which it wants; and
that the appetites and pleasures, and moreover the
fears and sorrows, in which whatever exceeds the proper
bounds is amenable to judgment, should be set in motion
by the body, and yet that the sins arising from these,
and the punishments for the sins committed, should
fall upon the soul alone, which neither needs anything
of this sort, nor desires nor fears or suffers of itself
any such thing as man is wont to suffer? But even if
we hold that these affections do not pertain to the
body alone, but to man, in saying which we should speak
correctly, because the life of man is one, though composed
of the two, yet surely we shall not assert that these
things belong to the soul, if we only look simply at
its peculiar nature. For if it is absolutely without
need of food, it can never desire those things which
it does not

161

in the least require for its subsistence; nor can it
feel any impulse towards any of those things which
it is not at all fitted to use; nor, again, can it
be grieved at the want of money or other property,
since these are not suited to it. And if, too, it is
superior to corruption, it fears nothing whatever as
destructive of itself: it has no dread of famine, or
disease, or mutilation, or blemish, or fire, or sword,
since it cannot suffer from any of these any hurt or
pain, because neither bodies nor bodily powers touch
it at all. But if it is absurd to attach the passions
to the soul as belonging specially to it, it is in
the highest degree unjust and unworthy of the judgment
of God to lay upon the soul alone the sins which spring
from them, and the consequent punishments.

CHAP. XXII.--CONTINUATION OF THE ARGUMENT.

In addition to what has been said, is it not absurd
that, while we cannot even have the notion of virtue
and vice as existing separately in the soul (for we
recognise the virtues as man's virtues, even as in
like manner vice, their opposite, as not belonging
to the soul in separation from the body, and existing
by itself), yet that the reward or punishment for these
should be assigned to the soul alone? How can any one
have even the notion of courage or fortitude as existing
in the soul alone, when it has no fear of death, or
wounds, or maiming, or loss, or maltreatment, or of
the pain connected with these, or the suffering resulting
from them? And what shall we say of self-control and
temperance, when there is no desire drawing it to food
or sexual intercourse, or other pleasures and enjoyments,
nor any other thing soliciting it from within or exciting
it from without? And what of practical wisdom, when
things are not proposed to it which may or may not
be done, nor things to be chosen or avoided, or rather
when there is in it no motion at all or natural impulse
towards the doing of anything? And how in any sense
can equity be an attribute of souls, either in reference
to one another or to anything else, whether of the
same or of a different kind, when they are not able
from any source, or by any means, or in any way, to
bestow that which is equal according to merit or according
to analogy, with the exception of the honour rendered
to God, and, moreover, have no impulse or motion towards
the use of their own things, or abstinence from those
of others, since the use of those things which are
according to nature, or the abstinence from them, is
considered in reference to those who are so constituted
as to use them, whereas the soul neither wants anything,
nor is so constituted as to use any things or any single
thing, and therefore what is called the independent
action of the parts cannot be found in the soul so
constituted?

CHAP. XXIII.--CONTINUATION OF THE ARGUMENT.

But the most irrational thing of all is this: to
impose properly sanctioned laws on men, and then to
assign to their souls alone the recompense of their
lawful or unlawful deeds. For if he who receives the
laws would also justly receive the recompense of the
transgression of the laws, and if it was man that received
the laws, and not the soul by itself, man must also
bear the recompense for the sins committed, and not
the soul by itself, since God has not enjoined on souls
to abstain from things which have no relation to them,
such as adultery, murder, theft, rapine, dishonour
to parents, and every desire in general that tends
to the injury and loss of our neighbours. For neither
the command, "Honour thy father and thy mother,"
is adapted to souls alone, since such names are not
applicable to them, for souls do not produce souls,
so as to appropriate the appellation of father or mother,
but men produce men; nor could the command, "Thou
shalt not commit adultery," ever be properly addressed
to souls, or even thought of in such a connection,
since the difference of male and female does not exist
in them, nor any aptitude for sexual intercourse, nor
appetite for it; and where there is no appetite, there
can be no intercourse; and where there is no intercourse
at all, there can be no legitimate intercourse, namely
marriage; and where there is no lawful intercourse,
neither can there be unlawful desire of, or intercourse
with, another man's wife, namely adultery. Nor, again,
is the prohibition of theft, or of the desire of having
more, applicable to souls, for they do not need those
things, through the need of which, by reason of natural
indigence or want, men are accustomed to steal or to
rob, such as gold, or silver, or an animal, or something
else adapted for food, or shelter, or use; for to an
immortal nature everything which is desired by the
needy as useful is useless. But let the fuller discussion
of these matters be left to those who wish to investigate
each point more exactly, or to contend more earnestly
with opponents. But, since what has just been said,
and that which concurs with this to guarantee the resurrection,
suffices for us, it would not be seasonable to dwell
any longer upon them; for we have not made it our aim
to omit nothing that might be said, but to point out
in a summary manner to those who have assembled what
ought to be thought concerning the resurrection, and
to adapt to the capacity of those present the arguments
bearing on this question.

CHAP. XXIV.--ARGUMENT FOR THE RESURRECTION FROM THE
CHIEF END OF MAN.

The points proposed for consideration having been
to some extent investigated, it remains to

162

examine the argument from the end or final cause, which
indeed has already emerged m what has been said, and
only requires just so much attention and further discussion
as may enable us to avoid the appearance of leaving
unmentioned any of the matters briefly referred to
by us, and thus indirectly damaging the subject or
the division of topics made at the outset. For the
sake of those present, therefore, and of others who
may pay attention to this subject, it may be well just
to signify that each of those things which are constituted
by nature, and of those which are made by art, must
have an end peculiar to itself, as indeed is taught
us by the common sense of all men, and testified by
the things that pass before our eyes. For do we not
see that husbandmen have one end, and physicians another;
and again, the things which spring out of the earth
another, and the animals nourished upon it, and produced
according to a certain natural series, another? If
this is evident, and natural and artificial powers,
and the actions arising from these, must by all means
be accompanied by an end in accordance with nature,
it is absolutely necessary that the end of men, since
it is that of a peculiar nature, should be separated
from community with the rest; for it is not lawful
to suppose the same end for beings destitute of rational
judgment, and of those whose actions are regulated
by the innate law and reason, and who live an intelligent
life and observe justice. Freedom from pain, therefore,
cannot be the proper end for the latter, for this they
would have in common with beings utterly devoid of
sensibility: nor can it consist in the enjoyment of
things which nourish or delight the body, or in an
abundance of pleasures; else a life like that of the
brutes must hold the first place, while that regulated
by virtue is without a final cause. For such an end
as this, I suppose, belongs to beasts and cattle, not
to men possessed of an immortal soul and rational judgment.

CHAP. XXV.--ARGUMENT CONTINUED AND CONCLUDED.

Nor again is it the happiness of soul separated
from body: for we are not inquiring about the life
or final cause of either of the parts of which man
consists, but of the being who is composed of both;
for such is every man who has a share in this present
existence, and there must be some appropriate end proposed
for this life. But if it is the end of both parts together,
and this can be discovered neither while they are still
living in the present state of existence through the
numerous causes already mentioned, nor yet when the
soul is in a state of separation, because the man cannot
be said to exist when the body is dissolved, and indeed
entirely scattered abroad, even though the soul continue
by itself--it is absolutely necessary that the end
of a man's being should appear in some reconstitution
of the two together, and of the same living being.
And as this follows of necessity, there must by all
means be a resurrection of the bodies which are dead,
or even entirely dissolved, and the same men must be
formed anew, since the law of nature ordains the end
not absolutely, nor as the end of any men whatsoever,
but of the same men who passed through the previous
life; but it is impossible for the same men to be reconstituted
unless the same bodies are restored to the same souls.
But that the same soul should obtain the same body
is impossible in any other way, and possible only by
the resurrection; for if this takes place, an end befitting
the nature of men follows also. And we shall make no
mistake in saying, that the final cause of an intelligent
life and rational judgment, is to be occupied uninterruptedly
with those objects to which the natural reason is chiefly
and primaily adapted, and to delight unceasingly in
the contemplation of Him who is, and of His decrees,
notwithstanding that the majority of men, because they
are affected too passionately and too violently by
things below, pass through life without attaining this
object. For the large number of those who fail of the
end that belongs to them does not make void the common
lot, since the examination relates to individuals,
and the reward or punishment of lives ill or well spent
is proportioned to the merit of each.

Ever since the dawn of modern rationalism, skeptics have sought to use textual criticism, archaeology and historical reconstructions to uncover the "historical Jesus" -- a wise teacher who said many wonderful things, but fulfilled no prophecies, performed no miracles and certainly did not rise from the dead in triumph over sin.

Over the past 100 years, however, startling discoveries in biblical archaeology and scholarship have all but vanquished the faulty assumptions of these doubting modernists. Regretably, these discoveries have often been ignored by the skeptics as well as by the popular media. As a result, the liberal view still holds sway in universities and impacts the culture and even much of the church.

This presentation explodes the myths of these critics and the movies, books and television programs that have popularized their views.

Presented in ten parts -- perfect for individual, family and classroom study -- viewers will be challenged to go deeper in their knowledge of Christ in order to be able to defend their faith and present the truth to a skeptical modern world – that the Jesus of the Gospels is the Jesus of history -- "the same yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). He is the real Jesus.

Who is the dreaded beast of Revelation? Now at last, a plausible candidate
for this personification of evil incarnate has
been identified (or re-identified). Ken Gentry's insightful analysis of
scripture and history is likely to revolutionize your understanding of the book
of Revelation -- and even more importantly -- amplify and energize your
entire Christian worldview!

Historical footage and other graphics are used to illustrate the lecture Dr. Gentry
presented at the 1999 Ligonier Conference in Orlando, Florida. It is followed
by a one-hour question and answer session addressing the key concerns and
objections typically raised in response to his position. This presentation also features an introduction that touches on not only the confusion and controversy
surrounding this issue -- but just why it may well be one of the most significant
issues facing the Church today.

Ideal for group meetings, personal Bible study -- for anyone who wants to understand
the historical context of John's famous letter "... to the seven churches
which are in Asia." (Revelation 1:4)

Just what is “Calvinism?” Does this teaching make man a deterministic robot and God the author of sin? What about free will? If the church accepts Calvinism, won’t evangelism be stifled, perhaps even extinguished? How can we balance God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility? What are the differences between historic Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism? Why did men like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, Whitefield, Edwards and a host of renowned Protestant evangelists embrace the teaching of predestination and election and deny free will theology?

This is the first video documentary that answers these and other related questions. Hosted by Eric Holmberg, this fascinating three-part, four-hour presentation is detailed enough so as to not gloss over the controversy. At the same time, it is broken up into ten “Sunday-school-sized” sections to make the rich content manageable and accessible for the average viewer.

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web site, visit The Forerunner Forum.

The Real Jesus:
A Defense of the Divinity and Historicity of Christ
is now available! This is a two hour, ten minute presentation debunking the myths about Jesus propogated by liberal theologians, which seem to be repeated endlessly in the popular media. You can order the newly expanded and improved DVD version hosted by Eric Holmberg and view some video clips from "Podcast" version as well ...